Set in May, 1940, Berlin, as Hitler prepares to invade Western Europe, there is bloodshed closer to home, when detective Horst Schenke, from the Kripo unit, who is honest investigates the death of a mobster, sacrificing his personal safety, trying to do the right thing in a state run by evil. As a result, he plunges into the criminal underworld of the Third Reich, ruled by gangsters as ruthless as the Nazis. Now Schenke must operate in the many shades of grey.  Powerless against the consequences of the war, he fights to keep criminals off his patch. But with doubts growing about his loyalty to the Nazi regime, he is walking a tightrope. If his relationship with a Jewish woman is exposed, a dreadful fate awaits.

Berlin’s gangsters run their crime rings with impunity. Decadent senior Nazis protect them. Schenke is different as he won’t turn a blind eye when innocents are caught in the crossfire between warring gangs. But dangerous enemies know everything about him. They will do whatever it takes to bend him to their will.

From the seedy wartime nightlife to aristocratic homes frequented by the Führer, as the distant war spirals even closer. Simon Scarrow’s, A Death in Berlin, conveys the horror and banality of evil- and the terrible danger for those who dare stand against it. 

A Death in Berlin by Simon Scarrow, Headline £22/$30.