Mandy Rowbotham
Hamburg, 1946. The war is over, and Germany is in ruins. Posted to an Allied-run Hamburg, reporter Georgie Young returns to the country she fled seven years prior – as Chamberlain spoke those fateful words – to find it unrecognisable.
Amidst the stark horrors of a bombed-out city crumbling under the weight of millions of displaced Europeans, she discovers pockets of warmth: a violinist playing amidst the wreckage, couples dancing in the streets, and a nation trying to make amends.
But when she joins forces with local policeman Harri Schroder to solve a murder case he is working on – a woman with the word traitor engraved into her skin – she soon discovers that the darkest secrets of war haven’t been left in the past. And once again she is pulled into a world she hardly expected to see again…