The epic novel of two families and the genocide in Nazi Germany, by the writer of the blockbuster TV miniseries. The Dorfs are "good" Germans, loyal to the new Nazi regime, with whom their son Erik, a promising lawyer, finds his ambitions realized with the SS at the side of the ruthless Reinhard Heydrich. The Weisses are Jewish, also "good" Germans-but under the new regime, they are doomed. Told through the reminiscences of Erik Dorf, the ambitious...

Follows the tragedy and triumph of the Weiss family of Berlin and intertwines their fate as European Jews with the story of a German family, the Dorfs, whose members include a high-ranking Nazi officer. Kristallnacht, the "night of broken glass" occurs and the Weiss family suffer a series of unspeakable tragedies in the aftermath.