February 27, 1933. In this stunning prequel to the John Russell espionage novels, the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin is set ablaze. Itâs just a month after Hitlerâs inauguration as Chancellor of Germany, and the Nazis use the
torching to justify a campaign of terror against their political opponents.
John Russellâs recent separation from his wife threatens his right to reside in Germany and any meaningful relationship with his six-year-old son, Paul. He has just secured work as a crime reporter for a Berlin newspaper, and the crimes
which he has to reportâthe gruesome murder of a rent boy, the hit-and-run death of a professional genealogist, the suspicious disappearance of a Nazi supporting celebrity fortune-tellerâare increasingly entangled in the wider
nightmare engulfing Germany.
Each new investigation carries the risk of Russellâs falling foul of the authorities, at a time when the rule of law has completely vanished, and the Nazis are running scores of pop-up detention centers, complete with torture chambers, in every
corner of Berlin.