A partisan fighting with the Red Army in Germany comes across a grand, abandoned house. He falls asleep in the living room, but wakes to find a German patrol marching up the garden path. His only hope is to pose as the house's owner. Dazzling, dark and scorchingly violent, with the breakneck pace of a thriller, this novel is a vivid depiction of what happens when the mask of decency is cast aside in the savagery of war. A timeless Dutch classic.