It is April 1945, and the small town of Lohenfelde is about to be overrun by the Allied Third Army. Huddled in the vaults of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum to escape the artillery bombardment, are Heinrich Hoffer, the Acting Director, and his three colleagues, two women and one man. Their petty rivalries and resentments surface quickly in their confinement, and the vaults become a stage for an intense psychological drama of secret histories and shared terror.

Above ground, picking through the rubble, is Corporal Neal Parry who wishes he was back in West Virginia studying art, and not dodging snipers. When he finds an exquisite painting in what remains of the museum vaults, he is immediately reconnected with a lost world of beauty and order: the world of art. It is this small 18th century oil — the appropriately titled Landscape with Ruins — that is the poignant link between the young soldier and the four charred corpses he finds at the same time. As the narratives interweave, the story of the painting reveals the hidden story of Herr Hoffer and his three associates — and in so doing, uncovers other, darker mysteries.

In this thrilling re-creation of the last months of the Second World War, Adam Thorpe has written a narrative tour de force. Through his beautifully drawn characters, Thorpe allows us to see — just as they begin to see — the possibilities of art and love: perspective, in the face of war.

April 1945: a small German town is about to be overrun by the Allied Third Army. The vaults of the town's museum become a stage for an intense psychological drama of secret histories and shared terror, as four people prepare themselves for their fate.

On April 3, 1945, the advancing American army shells the historic town of Lohenfelde, and the Kaiser-Wilhelm museum. Within the museum's vaults, Heinrich Hoffer is hiding from the bombardment, and trying to keep a priceless Van Gogh from falling into the hands of a rogue Nazi. After the shelling, an American corporal, Neal Parry, finds a beautiful eighteenth-century oil painting in the rubble, and must confront both its beauty, and the morality of stealing it. The stories of Herr Hoffer, Parry, and their paintings unfold simultaneously in this gripping, brilliantly structured novel about art and war.

Adam Thorpe, a poet and novelist, is the author of five novels including Ulverton; his most recent poetry collection is Nine Lessons from the Dark.