Master of One Hundred Bones
Germany, spring 1939. A storm gathers over Europe, as the Third Reich, Mussolini’s Italy and imperial Japan inexorably converge to create the premises for the Second World War.
It is in this climate that young First Lieutenant Martin Bora – fresh from distinguishing himself on the Spanish Front, and a promising German counterespionage officer – is summoned to his hometown, Leipzig, for a very delicate mission. Confidential reports indicate that among the Japanese guests of a German-Italian-Japanese conference in town, there hides someone spying for the Americans. Everything leads Bora’s superiors to believe the spy (code-name Master of One Hundred Bones) is General Kobe, a jingoistic, merciless veteran of the bloody Manchurian invasion. Bora’s task is to infiltrate the conference and discover the spy. He has barely begun his work when Kobe and his aide are found murdered in complicated and shocking circumstances. The double murder throws everything up in the air, forcing Bora to confront himself with the unknown and potentially hostile world of Japanese culture and its countless ambiguities. Under orders to solve a case which, one surprising turn of events after another, seems to turn ever more complicated and incomprehensible, Bora eventually senses the presence of a “puppeteer”. But who might the puppet master be? Is there only one? And what is his real purpose?
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