n Ilja Albrecht’s third thriller, Gegenstrom (Upstream), BKA profiler Kiran Mendelsohn finds his long-awaited escape to the Scottish Highlands abruptly derailed by forces far larger than a spoiled holiday. What begins as an innocuous request for help from a friend in northern Inverness – blocking the aggressive advance of a ruthless American oligarch – quickly escalates into a transnational investigation that pulls Mendelsohn to London and back into the machinery of international intelligence.

The formal case emerges with the unexplained cardiac death of a German engineer in Greater London. Working alongside British authorities and the NSA, Mendelsohn and his team uncover disturbing inconsistencies that suggest the death was anything but natural. As similar cases surface, a pattern takes shape: a highly organised and covert group is systematically identifying, threatening, and eliminating individuals who come too close to its operations. Motives remain elusive, but the professionalism of the killings points unmistakably to a far-reaching agenda.

Set against the volatile pre-Brexit climate in the United Kingdom – where political uncertainty and geopolitical realignment create fertile ground for shadow actors – Gegenstrom traces the emergence of dark alliances preparing for a new European order. As the German-British task force digs deeper into the victims’ lives, the hunters become the hunted. When a colleague is murdered, restraint gives way to fury, and Mendelsohn is forced into a decisive confrontation that tests his principles, his loyalty, and his willingness to go against the current. Tense, international in scope, and steeped in contemporary political unease, the novel expands the Mendelsohn-Blohm series into a broader arena of global power and lethal ambition.