I think this is the best of Clements’ books so far. Set in Munich in the 30s when Hitler was on the rise and hundreds of young, well-bred men and women, high-born, travelled to the city as a sort of finishing school/playground. What we enter is the underbelly of the rich and well-connected with Unity Mitford floating around hanging onto Hitler, Volkisch myths and legends and people with dark desires.

Into this steps Sebastian Wolff, a detective who does not follow the thinking about Jews or homosexuals, and who has been thrown into Dachau by the political police. He is rescued because a young English woman is murdered and he speaks fluent English due to his time working on board an English ship. There is always an added challenge and here he has to work with a new partner, the man who placed him in Dachau.

Clements gives his characters an interesting home life. Here Wolff has a son, Jurgen, who is a member of the Hitler Youth and can’t understand why his father doesn’t see the ‘rightness’ of their actions ending up in the relationship between father and son fractured. When Jurgen needs his help, it mends slightly but there are still the political differences between them. This must have been mirrored in families up and down the country at the time.

The book exemplifies rough justice throughout and that is how the crimes are resolved but that would be par for the course if one group of people is held to be ‘superior’ to another. What do you do with them when they obviously aren’t? You use the thugs and your position of power, in this instance closeness to Hitler, to disappear people.

It almost feels like there is another book to follow because we don’t really get to the point of knowing explicitly, who gave the orders at the end. It feels like it should be followed up in the next book but I think this is a standalone novel so maybe not. That’s a pity because this was a good twisty, well-plotted story and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

You might also enjoy The Man in The bunker and The English Fuhrer.