MY COLD WAR COLD CASE: An American Exchange Student, a Girl in a Green Sweater, and the East German Secret Police [working title] is the true story of author Debby Pattiz’s obsessive quest to find an East German dissident who vanished when Debby was a Brown University student  living behind the Berlin Wall.

With only a first name and a single photograph of a girl in a green sweater, Debby returns to Germany three decades later. Clue by clue, document by document, the mystery unravels. Her search leads to a forgotten journal, a renegade German president, and a hidden tombstone.

Debby’s true story is journey meets mystery, memory meets history. It wraps up warnings from Germany’s lesser-known second dictatorship  into a relatable personal quest. It also confronts uncomfortable truths about the resurgence of authoritarianism today.