Book Trailer: Before the Court of Heaven

BEFORE THE COURT OF HEAVEN is based on the true story of a fascist assassin, an early Nazi, Ernst Techow, and his complex and harrowing redemption.  Techow participates in the 1922 murder of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, the highest-ranking Jew in the Weimar Republic.  The novel is inspired by the history of how Germany’s Weimar democracy became the Third Reich – how ordinary Germans became complicit in extraordinary crimes – a cautionary tale for today.  BEFORE THE COURT OF HEAVEN is also the tender story of Ernst’s inextinguishable passion for his first love, Lisa.  They are star-crossed lovers, buffeted by the rising tide of Nazi ascendency.

***********************     “Haunting echoes of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. . . “  

- US Review of Books

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“. . . a strong, affecting novel . . . a story of immense human failure and touching redemption . . . it stands among the finer recent portrayals in fiction of the most troubling era of modern history.” 

- Jay Parini