This is the second book featuring Franz Schmidt, set in Nazi Germany. The Eye of the Abyss is the first, which received considerable acclaim at the time it was published.
From the Blurb:
Franz Schmidt arrives in Berlin in January 1939 to take up the position of Chief Auditor at the Reichsbank, the financial heart of the Third Reich. He has been positioned there by the enigmatic von Streck, a high-ranking member of the Nazi Party, but one who has a different agenda to that of the Fuehrer.
Opening Lines:
At one minute to nine on a bitter morning, Franz Schmidt walked to Berlin's Wilhelmstrasse cocooned in a throng of phantom figures. The fog blanketing the city had cut visibility to just metres and, peering ahead, the auditor decided that the footfalls tapping eerily on the pavement were a percussion performance from a host of lost souls.