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The novel is set in 1964. We are transported to an alternate world in which Nazi Germany won the war, or at least it did not lose. Aging Hitler continues to hold onto power. He and his henchmen seem to tightly control Germany and the Germans. The territories under their rule stretch over much of Europe to Siberia in the east. Switzerland maintains neutrality.

What if Hitler had won? The story gives an idea of what life in Germany could have been like had the Nazi regime survived the war.

A corpse is found in the Havel River in Berlin. The dead man turns out to be a retired high-ranking Nazi official named Josef Buhler.
What caused his death? An accident? Suicide? Was he murdered? Xavier March, a criminal detective, has to investigate the case.
It is not long before he finds out that the death of Buhler may be part of something bigger. Some other former high-ranking Nazi officials died in the space of several years under somewhat dubious circumstances. Most of them knew Buhler and worked with him in the 1940s during the war.
Moreover, they seem to have attended the Wannsee Conference in 1942.

March's investigation leads him not only to solving the case of the alleged murders but also forces him to open his eyes to the history of his fatherland, to the history freed from myths and propaganda. March spent the war years in the Navy and knew close to nothing about what was happening on the ground. While his lack of knowledge can be explained, it seems that the whole nation succumbed to what could be called collective amnesia. Germans prefer to turn a blind eye to the fate of all those people who disappeared overnight, many of them their neighbors.
It is easier not to think of those whose lives were destroyed. The war almost inevitably produced certain excesses. Some things that were done had to be done. Maybe those things were horrible, but now it is over, and we, Germans, live in a peaceful Reich. Well, one careless word might raise suspicion. Soldiers are still dying. But they fight 'terrorists' in Siberia, those who do not want to become slaves, and they defend the German national interests, do they not? We should not dig into the past, should we?
But as one of the characters says:
“You can't build on a mass grave. Human beings are better than that - they have to be better than that - I do believe it - don't you?��

At some point March realizes that he can no longer ignore the past. The truth has the habit of revealing itself sooner or later. The power of truth usually cannot be hidden or silenced completely.

The novel is more than just a detective story. It can make us think of the famous or rather infamous adage "History is written by the victors." Is it always so? Does this mean that historical narratives are always somewhat biased? I believe, yes, to a certain extent they are.

The book is not perfect. I would have liked to see more details describing life in an alternate Reich. But I found it a very good read overall.