Berlin, November 1941. A city built on lies is about to confront the greatest lie of all. When SD investigator Fischer applies the Reich's own racial genealogy methods to its Führer - and records exactly what he finds - he is dead within days. So are the two men who knew too much. Now, a Kriminalpolizei detective named Wagner, himself concealing a Jewish identity beneath a fabricated file, and a battle-worn Feldgendarmerie captain named Muller find themselves in possession of the document three men died to suppress: proof, established by the Reich's own standards, that Adolf Hitler carries African ancestry his government classifies as grounds for deportation.
The investigation is closed. The orders are to stand down. Wagner and Muller keep pulling the thread. With Heydrich closing in, the Gestapo watching, and a Schutzstaffel general prepared to kill anyone who stands between him and the buried report, time is measured in days - and Wagner's wounded body is already running short. Their only chance is to move the document beyond the Reich's reach: through a Reuters correspondent named Crane, a discreet Italian diplomat, and a British embassy pouch with a Friday deadline.
Shadows of Blood is a novel about what happens when a totalitarian state turns its own machinery on itself - and the ordinary men, damaged and afraid, who refuse to let the truth die with them.
Berlin, November 1941. A city built on lies is about to confront the greatest lie of all. When SD investigator Fischer applies the Reich's own racial genealogy methods to its Führer - and records exactly what he finds - he is dead within days. So are the two men who knew too much. Now, a Kriminalpolizei detective named Wagner, himself concealing a Jewish identity beneath a fabricated file, and a battle-worn Feldgendarmerie captain named Muller find themselves in possession of the document three men died to suppress: proof, established by the Reich's own standards, that Adolf Hitler carries African ancestry his government classifies as grounds for deportation.
The investigation is closed. The orders are to stand down. Wagner and Muller keep pulling the thread. With Heydrich closing in, the Gestapo watching, and a Schutzstaffel general prepared to kill anyone who stands between him and the buried report, time is measured in days - and Wagner's wounded body is already running short. Their only chance is to move the document beyond the Reich's reach: through a Reuters correspondent named Crane, a discreet Italian diplomat, and a British embassy pouch with a Friday deadline.
Shadows of Blood is a novel about what happens when a totalitarian state turns its own machinery on itself - and the ordinary men, damaged and afraid, who refuse to let the truth die with them.