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As Rome falls and the Wehrmacht retreats into the mountains — the same week the Allies storm Normandy — a German colonel investigates a murder he has no right to solve, using the one man he has orders to execute.
Abruzzo, June 1944. Lieutenant Colonel Martin Bora is diverted into the wild country below the Gran Sasso on a mission he cannot refuse: destroy a cache of explosive diplomatic correspondence, then silence the socialist lawyer who holds it. He has barely arrived in the remote village of Faracruci when, unaware the Allies have just landed in Normandy, an American soldier is found stabbed in the square. Bora can neither report the death nor investigate it officially — so he enlists the very man he is meant to execute. Together they uncover a second, older crime, and a truth that implicates the village's most respected citizen. Ben Pastor's ninth Martin Bora novel is the most purely enjoyable in the series: a classic village mystery, a wartime thriller, and a study of a man who believes in justice while being ordered to violate it.
PRAISE FOR THE MARTIN BORA SERIES
Lumen (2011). “well crafted, her prose sharp” — Publishers Weekly
Liar Moon (2012). “handles her themes with impressive skill” — The Times Literary Supplement
A Dark Song of Blood (2014). The atmospheric third entry, moving the action to occupied Rome in the winter of 1944 — reviewed on publication by Publishers Weekly.
Tin Sky (2015). Praised on publication as an excellent fourth entry taking Bora to Ukraine — a starred review from Publishers Weekly.
The Road to Ithaca (2017). “Solid history, convoluted crime.” — Booklist
The Horseman's Song (2019). “a poignant, convincing portrait of life during wartime” — Foreword Reviews
The Night of Shooting Stars (2020). “the tense and dramatic atmosphere of Berlin is vividly recounted… Thrilling” — Journal of the Law Society of Scotland
The Venus of Salò (2023). “A triumph as a novel and a murder story.” — The Critic
“...whose imagination seems indeed to have invented the Second World War itself.” — Fredric Jameson, London Review of Books