5Although a novel, this story is historically accurate and tells in vivid detail what life was like in Berlin during the RAF's bombing campaign against the city in the winter of 1943-44.
The story tells of how the 19 bombing raids that winter affected the lives of ordinary Berliners, as well as its extraordinary cast of characters and narrators. The story tells the dates, times, duration, locations and aftermath of the raids and offers an extraordinary insight into how the average Berliner lived and coped under such devastating conditions.
This is a story without oxygen, where breathing is difficult as smoke and ash fills our lungs and clings to our clothing, stings our eyes and singes our hair. It follows surgeon Gabriella von Klonau as she murders the vulnerable and the damaged in the blacked out, bombed out mayhem and chaos of Berlin during that dark bitter winter of coughs and tears.