This listing is for Ariana Franklin City of Shadows Hardcover First 1st Edition.  

Hardcover: 422 pages

Publisher: William Morrow; First 1st Edition (May 9, 2006)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0060817267

ISBN-13: 978-0060817268

A cultured city scarred by war. An eastern emigre with scars and secrets of her own. A young woman who claims to be a Russian grand duchess. A brazen killer, as vicious as he is clever. A detective driven by decency and the desire for justice. A political movement growing in power. . . .

Deeply atmospheric, peopled with rich, complex characters, City of Shadows is an enthralling novel of historical suspense set in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s -- a decadent, turbulent time in which a proud nation scarred by defeat, deprivation, and debauchery will become the fertile breeding ground for the rise of National Socialism.

Berlin, 1922 -- one of this troubled city's growing number of refugees, Esther Solomonova survives by working as secretary to her fellow Russian emigre, "Prince"Nick, a scheming adventurer and cabaret owner. Always on the prowl for a deal, Nick smells money when he hears of a woman in an asylum claiming to be a grand duchess, daughter of the Czar of all the Russias, who escaped the assassination of the rest of her family by the Bolsheviks. Enlisting a highly suspicious Esther, Nick plans to prepare the woman -- known as Anna Anderson -- to claim the Romanov fortune.

But Anna is being hunted. Or so she claims. At first Esther believes Anna's fear to be just in her imagination -- until innocent people around them begin to die. So in a Berlin stricken by hyperinflation, Esther enlists the help of a German police officer -- a dogged inspector named Schmidt -- to try and find out who wants Anna dead -- and why. Yet the deeper she and Schmidt dig, the more they realize that their own lives are at risk.

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