Peenemunde: windswept corner of the Third Reich & birthplace of the space age. Otto Fischer a severely wounded Luftwaffe officer & former criminal investigator is summoned to solve a seemingly incomprehensible case: the murder of a leading rocket engineer during a devastating air-raid. With only days until the SS assume control of the production of a remarkable new weapon Fischer must find a motive & perpetrator from among several thousand scientists technicians soldiers & forced labourers. As he struggles to get the measure of a secretive brilliant world in which imagination moves far beyond the limits of technology what at first appears to be a solitary crime draws him into a labyrinth of conspiracy betrayal & treason. Mc Dermott brings skills previously honed whilst producing well-researched history books to the discipline of writing fiction creating work that is both historically accurate & evocative as well as stylish in a literary sense.