The Agreeable Ones

East Berlin, in the years the Wall goes up. Liesel Hofmann is the warmest pair of hands in her congregation — the woman who lays every table, smooths every meeting, and has never once in her life spoiled a warm room. It is the best thing about her. Everyone says so.

Then a pleasant man from the housing office begins to linger on the landing over coffee. Werner finds roof tiles for the church hall, remembers every birthday, helps with every form — and only ever asks, kindly, how people are getting on. And Liesel, who has never said no to a kind face, tells him. About brave Frau Sommer, who stood up alone at the parents' evening. About the Thursday circle. About all of it, warmly, because every word is praise.

A luminous, quietly shattering novella of the warmest sin there is — and the stand-alone prequel to Until I Come.