FOURTH IN THE MARTIN BORA SERIES.
SPELLBINDING MULTI-LAYERED CRIME NOVEL SET IN UKRAINE AS THE GERMANS REGROUP AFTER THE DISASTER OF STALINGRAD.
FOR FANS OF PHILLIP KERR (BERNIE GUNTHER SERIES), ALAN FURST (SPIES OF THE BALKANS).
THE HERO, MAJOR MARTIN BORA, IS AN ARISTOCRATIC GERMAN OFFICER OF THE ILK OF CLAUS VON STAUFFENBERG, TORN BETWEEN HIS DUTY AS AN OFFICER AND HIS INTEGRITY AS A HUMAN BEING.
Ukraine, 1943. Having barely escaped the inferno of Stalingrad, Major Martin Bora is serving on the Russian front as a German counterintelligence officer. Weariness, disillusionment, and battle fatigue are a soldier’s daily fare, yet Bora seems to be one of the few whose sanity is not marred by the horrors of war.
As the Wehrmacht prepare for the Kursk counter-offensive, a Russian general defects aboard a T-34, the most advanced tank of the war. Soon he and another general, this one previously captured, are found dead in their cells. Everything appears to exclude the likelihood of foul play, but Bora begins an investigation, in a stubborn attempt to solve a mystery that will come much too close to home.
Industry Reviews
“Ben Pastor’s novels featuring a Wehrmacht major are turning into one of the most appealing series in modern crime fiction, combining intriguing plots and characters who defy easy interpretation. This fine novel is packed with tense moments and moral ambiguity”. Sunday Times-London
"STARRED REVIEW Publishers Weekly W: Set in the spring of 1943, Pastor’s excellent fourth mystery featuring Maj. Martin Bora (after 2014’s Dark Song of Blood) takes the German army counterintelligence officer to Ukraine. In Krasny Yar, a place shunned by the locals, someone has been savagely killing peasants for no apparent reason. Bora has little time to investigate before a higher-profile case claims his attention. Gen. Ghenrikh “Khan” Tibyetsky, a tank corps commander with access to the highest level of Soviet military planning, has offered to defect to the Germans. Khan’s information could be crucial to the battle looming in the Kursk salient. Bora handles Khan’s surrender, but the Gestapo later takes control of the prisoner. When Khan dies in Gestapo custody, an apparent poisoning victim, no one besides Bora, a decent man, seems interested in solving the crime, which may be linked to the murders at Krasny Yar. Pastor effectively melds a well-constructed whodunit with a grim portrayal of the Eastern front. (May 2015)’ PW
"Bora is a brilliantly developed character, and Pastor’s devastated Ukraine is richly atmospheric." Booklist
