After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, starting World War Two, the Soviet Union also invaded the country. They took thousands of Polish soldiers prisoners, only to kill most and bury them in the forest west of Smolensk. This is were Bernie Gunther finds himself in 1943, to investigate the rumored massacre. He is now working for the War Crimes Bureau, part of the Army. But Bernie is there at the behest of Josef Goebbels who wants it proven to use as propaganda and that the Nazi's were correct all along to loath the Soviet Union as this massacre is an example of their evilness. Of course, he is conveniently forgetting all the killings that the SS have done in the same area.

Against this complex background, this book is, at heart, a murder investigation, not of the Polish soldiers but of a couple of Germany signal men who had their throats cut one night in Smolensk. Bernie is dragged into the case as he is a professional homicide detective and the army field police want his assistance. But more murders and conspiracies follow just to complicate things. In the end Bernie finds himself charged with attempted murder in a sudden sharp conclusion.

I found this overly complicated with multiple story lines, characters and events competing for my attention. As a murder thriller it's good but against the background it was placed it just stretched on. It shows the history and horror of the time. Most people only think about how evil the Nazis were but forget that the Soviet Union, under Stalin, was just as bad in every what, if not worse. They justify this because they were fighting the Nazis so they can't be all that bad, but they were.