"An accomplished historical crime novel; a first-rate read that puts the reader right in amongst the ruins of Dresden" - Frankfurter Stadtkurier
"A breath-taking novel guaranteed to keep you up all night" -
Rhein-Westerwald-News, Bad Neuenahr
Max Heller’s second case
“This was the price of survival. He would pay for it with his dreams and his deepest, most unfathomable fears.”
A freezing winter, an occupied city, abandoned children, a brutal murderer on the loose—and Max Heller’s second case
Dresden, 1947: the city lies within the Soviet occupation zone and is still a desert of rubble and ruins. All through that bone-chilling winter, life is dominated by housing shortage, hunger and disease. Detective inspector Max Heller is summoned to the scene of a crime in Dresden Neustadt by the newly-instigated People’s Police. The victim seems to be a Red Army soldier. But before he gets a chance to begin his investigations he discovers that the Russian military has removed the corpse from the scene. All that remains is a frozen pool of blood and an abandoned rucksack. When Heller opens it, he makes a gruesome discovery: a man’s severed head…