William Walker is a 40 year old American in 1975 Chicago, with a horrific past buried deep in his mind. As 10 year old Willi Berndt living in the shattered city of Berlin, lying in ruins in February 1945 as the Allies advanced on Hitler's capital, he witnessed the killing of his mother and the violent death of other loved ones. His mind has blocked the truth from him, but his psychiatrist uses hypnosis to regress him back to the time to discover what happened. What he finds out reveals a lot to him about his complex relationship with his mother, and with others of her circle of friends and acquaintances. The ending of the regression is dramatic and violent, but the denouement in 1975 seemed rather implausible and somewhat confused. I didn't think this novel was particularly well written, especially the dialogue, though the descriptions of devastated Berlin were evocative. 3.5/5

I spotted an anachronism - at one point, William is reminded of the killing of a Bulgarian in London with a poisoned umbrella, which happened in 1978, three years after the action of this novel. ( )