In this Edgar® Award-nominated novel in Philip Kerr's New York Times bestselling series, former detective and unwilling SS officer Bernie Gunther is on the hunt for a beautiful femme fatale...

Berlin, 1942. Three players take the stage. The first, a gorgeous actress—the rising star of a giant German film company controlled by the Propaganda Ministry. The second, the very clever, very dangerous Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels—a close confidant of Hitler, ambitious schemer, and flagrant libertine. Finally, there's Bernie Gunther—a former Berlin homicide bull now forced to run errands at the Propaganda Minister's command.

When Goebbels tasks Bernie with finding the woman the press have dubbed "the German Garbo," his errand takes him from Zurich to Zagreb to the killing fields of Croatia. It is there that Bernie finds himself in a world of mindless brutality where everyone has a hidden agenda—perfect territory for a true cynic whose instinct is to trust no one.