Lee Thomas
Set during the height of World War II, The German examines the effect a series of ritualistic murders has on a small, Texas community. A killer preys on the young men of Barnard, Texas, leaving cryptic notes written in German. As the panic builds all eyes turn toward a quiet man with secrets of his own, who is trying to escape a violent past.
Ernst Lang fled Germany in 1934. Once a brute, a soldier, a leader of the Nazi party, he has renounced aggression and embraces a peaceful obscurity. But Lang is haunted by an impossible past. He remembers his own execution and the extremes of sex and violence that led to it. He remembers the men he led into battle, the men he seduced, and the men who betrayed him. But are these the memories of a man given a second life, or the delusions of a lunatic?
Winner of the Lambda Literary Award!
Winner Il Posto Nero (The Black Spot): Best Foreign Language Book
A finalist for the Bram Stoker Award!
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by The Advocate.
The German
Paperback, 290 pages
Cover and interior design by Alex Jeffers"A novel that builds slowly - with painstaking attention paid to character development and the establishment of mood - to an unexpectedly fierce, heartrending finale that's less an eyebrow-raising surprise and more a series of rapid-fire sucker punches that will leave you slack-jawed and breathless." - Lambda Literary
"Thomas's compelling imagery and disturbing portrait of humanity at its worse will haunt readers long after the last page is turned." - Publishers Weekly