Cavalcade

Germany, 1923, and a new political party is on the rise, but just who is this chap Adolf Hitler and who would want to try and assassinate him in a Berlin park? As it turns out there are plenty of suspects and not even the members of his fledgling Nazi Party can be trusted, so the famous Pinkerton detective agency is called in to investigate. It is to be the most dangerous case yet to be undertaken by ‘The Pinkerton Pair’, the unlikely but endearing partnership of the wise-cracking Phil Beaumont (I was lying on the sofa, reading the Baedeker guide to southern Germany. It was a fine book, but it didn’t have much of a plot.) and the surprisingly resourceful English rose (and obsessive letter-writer) Miss Jane Turner.
A trail of murders leads the reluctant detectives from Berlin night clubs,where they encounter up-and-coming artistes called Marlene and Greta, to the Black Cat Cabaret, which offers rather more specialised entertainment, to an Institute of Sexology and then, after changing trains with a certain Mr Norris, to Bayreuth and Munich to meet, among others, Cosima and Siegfried Wagner, Rudolf Hess and Hermann Goering, accompanied by Hitler’s best friend Putzi Hanfstaengl, who may not be the genial host he pretends to be. When an unexpected – and unsavoury – encounter between Herr Hitler and Miss Turner derails the investigation, The Pinkerton Pair become the hunted not the hunters and must make a dangerous, hair-raising escape across Austria and Germany.
When Cavalcade was first published in the USA in 2005, January Magazine ‘Satterthwait is not content to dish up mere pastiche…he has something to say and he delivers the goods in spades. Cavalcade is a rip-snorting tale and a thoughtful, fascinating, hard-nosed take on one of the last century’s great evils.’