A fictionalised account of the Kaiser Wilhelm's last years in Nazi-occupied Holl&. It is 1940 & the exiled Kaiser is living in Holl&, at his palace Huis Doorn. The old German king spends his days chopping logs & musing on what might have been. When the Nazis invade Holl&, the Kaiser's Dutch staff are replaced by SS guards, led by young, eager Untersturmfuhrer Krebbs, & an unlikely relationship develops between the king & his keeper. While they agree on the rightfulness of German expansion & on holding the country's Jewish population accountable for all ills, they disagree on the solutions. Krebbs's growing attraction & love affair with Akki, a Jewish maid in the house, further undermines his belief in Nazism. But as the tides of war roll around them, all three find themselves increasingly compromised & gravely at risk. This subtle, tender novel borrows heavily from real history & events, but remains a work of superlative, literary fiction. Through Judd's depiction of the Lear-like Kaiser & the softening of brutal Krebbs, the novel draws unique parallels between Germany at the turn of the 20th century & Hitler's Germany.