Night Trains — Barbara Wood

The time is 1941; the place is the strategic town of Sofia, Poland, occupied by the Germans. As every arrest and execution brings total obliteration closer to reality, two medical doctors devise an ingenious plan -- to fake a typhus epidemic that will force the Nazis to evacuate.

Jan Szukalski, the brilliant doctor who masterminds the hoax with his partner, Maria Duszynska, whose work binds them together more strongly than love itself;

Hans Kepler, the young Nazi soldier on the bring of suicide who agrees to become the first guinea pig in testing the typhus vaccine -- and possibly its first victim;

Father Piotr Wajda, who breaks his sacred vows as a priest in order to save the lives of his townspeople;

Maximillian Hartung, ruthless in his lust for personal power and determined to win Hitler's personal attention for breaking the resistance in Sofia;

David Ryz, the young Jewish leader of a zealous band of partisans who incite the town to violence and unwittingly put the medical hoax in jeopardy.