The Song Before it is Sung

On 20 July 1944, Adolf Hitler narrowly escaped death when an assassin's bomb failed to kill him. The conspirators, among them Axel von Gottberg, were hunted down and hanged from meat-hooks, and their executions were filmed. Sixty years later, Conrad Senior is left a legacy of von Gottberg's papers and letters and becomes obsessed with what they reveal and with finding the film of those brutal executions. Award-winning writer Justin Cartwright has conjured a masterwork that addresses the nature of friendship and what it means to be human, and it is a remarkable tapestry of passion, ideas, frailty and courage.