The body of 92 year old Jossi Goldberg Holocaust survivor and American citizen is found shot to death execution style in his house near Frankfurt A five digit number is scrawled in blood at the murder scene The autopsy reveals an old and unsuccessfully covered tattoo on the corpse s arm a blood type marker once used by Hitler s SS Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver Bodenstein are faced with a riddle Was the old man not Jewish after all Who was he really Two more similar murders happen one of a wheelchair bound old lady in a nursing home and one of a man with a cellar filled with Nazi paraphernalia and slowly the connections between the victims becomes evident All of them were lifelong friends with Vera von Kaltensee baroness well respected philanthropist and head of an old rich family that she rules with an iron fist Pia and Oliver follow the trail which leads them all the way back to the end of World War II and the area of Poland that then belonged to East Prussia No one is who they claim to be and things only begin to make sense when the two investigators realize what the bloody number stands for and uncover an old diary and an eyewitness who is finally willing to come forward Nele Neuhaus s The Ice Queen is a character and plot driven mystery about revenge power and long forgotten and covered up secrets from a time in German history that still affects the present The third book from the bestselling author of Snow White Must Die and Big Bad Wolf

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