In the first two books of his critically acclaimed Christopher Marlowe Cobb series, The Hot Country and The Star of Istanbul, Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Olen Butler won the hearts of historical crime fiction fans with the artfulness of his World War I settings, his swashbuckling action, and his charismatic leading man, a Chicago journalist recruited by American intelligence. In the third installment, The Empire of Night, “Kit” is now a full-blown spy, and he has to go deep undercover to unravel a secret German plot for turning zeppelins into dangerous killing machines.It is 1917, and the United States is still wavering on the brink of war. At an elite intelligence meeting at a Hyde Park mansion, Kit’s handlers pair him up with someone he would never have expected — his mother. There’s a German mole somewhere in the British government, and the most likely suspect happens to be a diehard fan of the famous American theater actress Isabel Cobb. Disguised as a German-American reporter named Joseph William Hunter, Kit follows his mother and her escort Sir Albert Stockman from the relative safety of London into the lion’s den of Berlin.