Subtle alt history, more like a noir detective story, set in a world where the Nazis won the war. The state of the world remains mostly a sketch, probably for the benefit of the novel. Our nazi policeman Sam Spade is a bit too inquisitive for his own good as he uncovers the mystery of the great replacement hidden among a string of murders. ( )

It's 1964, twenty years after Germany won WWII. Hitler is approaching his 75th birthday. Berlin has been rebuilt on a massive scale. Poland no longer exists. Western Europe has been dissolved into one Economic bloc. Only Switzerland has escaped becoming part of the Reich Empire. Joe Kennedy is the current American president.

Xavier March, a member of the SS after the absorption of the police into the SS, is sent out to investigate a body found in a lake. This pulls him into the high ranks of the German hierarchy during the war, the taking of art, and ultimately the notes of Wanasee, where the Final Solution was discussed and agreed. He finds corruption is rife, triple crosses everywhere and a fanatical belief in the Third Reich (and Hitler) starting with his ex-wife and son. Already disenfranchised with the state of things, it is shattered even more when he comes across an American journalist who gives him another view of things.

As usual, you feel that Harris has done his homework - the whole story with regarding to Wansee and the concentration camps ties with other variations I have of this, the use of the German ranks is impressive (esp if you dont know what they mean!) and the envisioning of what Berlin would have been like had the building plans gone ahead.



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Fascinating alternate history novel where the Nazis won World War 2. There's loads of novels on this premise now but I think this is one of the best. There's also a film based on this novel. ( )

Mixed views about this book.
At first i was a bit like, ah this is boring, but when the plot started unfolding i was engrossed.
The cliche romance was a bit meh, but as a whole, a great enjoyable, somewhat scary book. ( )

At first I was disappointed, after all I the good I had heard, to find a mere detective story SET in a dystopian German Europe, albeit one that is closely connected to Germany's role in the holocaust. I had expected the idea that Germany had won the war to be the central pillar of the book, describing how our present (or that of 1964) would be different. But obviously, you need a plot to illustrate such a setting, and Thomas Harris does this brilliantly. Not a page goes by that doesn't allude to the darkness, the covert oppression, the brainwash, the willingness of the opportunist people to be part of a regime that is just barely hanging on.
Obviously, the story approaches this setting from several angles - the foreign (American) view, the secret dissenter of the system and all the conformists around them. And as the story unfolds, Harris doesn't cease to surprise. Twist after twist, you don't know where this is going, literally up to the last page. And all this rendered in a style full of ingenious and beautiful imagery.
SS-GB should be next, really, to see how the idea is processed there.