In the last days of World War II, SS lieutenant Johann von Ritter is dispatched on a mission to deliver a strongbox to the port of Stettin. But, feeling betrayed and disgusted by the Nazi leadership, he disobeys orders and hides the loot instead. Knowing he isn't going to make it, he leaves clues to the strongbox's location in two letters-one to his sister and one entrusted to Lena Mueller, the nurse who bears him a child he never knows.
Almost fifty years later, during the fall of the Berlin Wall, American Christoph Mueller inherits one of Ritter's letters from his dying grandmother. The contents of the yellowed missive plunge Mueller into a dangerous world.
Aided by Kurt Webber, a longtime friend of his grandmother's, Mueller finds himself on the run while Communist East Germany crumbles around him. He's the last to know the secret he holds as he's seduced by a Stasi informer and stalked by the murderous son of von Ritter's sister.
Set against the background of twentieth-century Berlin's most significant moments, The Nibelungen Hoard weaves historical facts and personages with riveting fiction, resulting in a dramatic tale of epic proportions.
About the Author: American Edwin M. Todd grew up in Scotland in the 1950s and 1960s, when the specter of World War II was still a very real presence. His fascination with that conflict stems from the war games he played and the comics he read as a boy. He earned his law degree from the University of California, Hastings College.
Todd has been a lawyer and owner of a construction company, and he presently serves as the director of the referee department for USA Rugby. In these capacities, he has gained extensive technical writing experience, while his historical thriller The Nibelungen Hoard is his first work of fiction.
Married with two children, Todd lives in Boulder, Colorado.
