Death Zones

In the lawless killing fields of the Eastern Front, SS Oberleutnant Hoffmann is on a mission to find a murderer

Belorussia, July 1943. As the Battle of Kursk rages to the east and the tide turns against the Nazi offensive, large swathes of White Russia are declared death zones – and a terrifying onslaught is unleashed on the civilian population.

German detective Oberleutnant Heinrich Hoffmann, posted to the brutal fringes of a crumbling Reich, is struggling to keep his focus, as his thoughts stray to Eline back in Hamburg. But when a visiting General and his wife are found murdered and mutilated, Heinrich is charged with finding the culprit, at whatever cost. His only witness: a six-year-old local girl.

In the man hunt that follows, Heinrich struggles to retain his humanity in the face of shifting loyalties, violence, and deadly SS politics, in the wild bloodlands between Berlin and Moscow.

Winner of the Danish Crime Book Award

Simon Pasternak is a Danish author, screenwriter and publisher living in Copenhagen. He is the co-author of a bestselling crime series with Christian Dorph, and has co-written two feature films including the historical thriller, The Idealist. Death Zones is his first solo novel, for which he drew inspiration from his own family history and Jewish roots in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Martin Aitken is the acclaimed translator of numerous novels from Danish, including works by Peter Høeg, Jussi Adler-Olsen and Pia Juul, and his translations of short stories and poetry have appeared in many literary journals and magazines. In 2012 he was awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Translation Prize.