When Professor Holda Weisel receives an unexpected visit from her student, Lars Koch, she is shocked to learn that his father, the infamous TV talk show host, died two days earlier under unexplained circumstances. His death appears to be linked to old diaries written by his grandmother and great-grandmother, which he was reading at the time. Lars, a usually withdrawn and unlikeable loner with disturbing alt-right leanings, resolves to investigate the mystery.

With the aid of Holda and her husband Rupert, the town’s archivist, Lars begins to dig deeper into his murky family history, uncovering unsettling secrets at every turn. The reader is drawn into a world of prejudice, prostitution and malicious folklore set during the occupation of the Rhineland and up to World War II. As he explores further, Lars realises how these events link him inexorably to the far-right, anarchistic Reichsbürger movement — revealing he is directly in harm’s way. Yet this is only the beginning of his nightmare…

Cathy Dobson