Kris Rusch is a household name in the world of science fiction and fantasy. With Hitler's Angel, she departs from her usual subject matter to write a gripping crime novel set in Germany on the eve of Adolf Hitler's ascension.

This much is true: Hitler had an affair with his niece, Geli Raubal. On the night of September 19, 1931, Geli was found, dead of a gunshot wound, in Hitler's apartment. Her death was ruled a suicide, but the suspicion of murder has remained.

Rusch begins in Munich in 1972, when a young American woman criminologist comes to interview Fritz Stecher, one of Germany's most famous detectives. The young American finds the German reluctant to discuss anything but the case that forced his retirement, about which no one in the world has heard. For this young woman, Fritz goes back to 1931, just before Hitler's rise, to his investigation of Geli's death -- though he did not know, could not have known, that what he did determined the course of history.

Rusch's taut, suspenseful novel is a fascinating exploration of the might-have-beens of this dark and fateful time.