Days of Atonement

From the international bestselling author of Critique of Criminal Reason, a master sleuth in French-occupied Prussia investigates a brutal murder.

It is 1807 and Napoleon’s army has swept over Prussia, leaving in its wake a conquered land occupied by the French. Local magistrate Hanno Stiffeniis has retreated to his home in the countryside in the hopes that he can keep himself away from the scrutiny of the occupying forces. But when Serge Lavedrine, Paris’s famed criminologist, requires his services, Stiffeniis has little choice but to accept.

Three children have been found massacred in their beds. Their mother has disappeared without a trace. The French authorities want nothing more than a quick resolution and an end to the hysteria that has gripped the town.

Stiffeniis has his own reasons for accepting the case. The victims’ father serves as a soldier in remote Kamentz, where the resistance to Napoleon’s occupation is already developing. If Stiffeniis cannot discover the whereabouts of the mother and the identity of the murderer in time, he risks exposing the Prussian rebellion to the French before it has the strength to succeed. Stiffeniis must once again put to use the powers of deduction learned from his late teacher, the famed philosopher Immanuel Kant.

Michael Gregorio’s internationally bestselling debut, Critique of Criminal Reason, was hailed by critics across the world. Now its sequel, Days of Atonement, marks the thrilling return of one the most talented new voices in historical fiction.

“Fusing philosophical insight with psychological subtlety, Gregorio endows an often-predictable genre with remarkable substance.” —Booklist, (starred review)