The Deaths of Berlin — Jim McDermott

Berlin, December 1944 - the heart of an empire that stands upon the precipice. France has been lost, the vast eastern territories marked out as lebensraum for future German generations submerged beneath the advancing Red tide. The pulse of the city has stilled; its famously phlegmatic citizens wait apprehensively, hoping for a miracle, expecting the deluge. In one of Berlin's suburbs, a different, more personal fear prevails. Women are dying, seemingly at the same hand, and the police are unwilling or unable to act. In a nation in which unspeakable excess has been formalized as policy, the creature may be untouchable. A silence has fallen upon Berlin-Lichterfelde, where many secrets converge. Major Otto Fischer, an invalided Luftwaffe Intelligence officer, undertakes the pursuit of the killer and his abettors. He has no resources, no time, no authority other than from a man whose involvement cannot be known. If Fischer's theory is correct, the most fortunate outcome of his investigation might be his own, swift death. As the crimes of the Third Reich turn upon their perpetrators, he and his tiny band of broken colleagues set themselves against a faceless edifice for which no act is unthinkable.