Based on the first of a trilogy by Tom Rob Smith and set in the Stalin era of the Soviet Union. The plot is about an idealistic pro-Stalin security officer who decides to investigate a series of child murders in a country where supposedly this sort of crime doesn't exist. The state would not hear of the existence of a child murderer let alone a serial killer. He gets demoted and exiled but decides, with just the help of his wife, to continue pursuing the case. Written by Arnold

As the Allies sweep across Germany, Lore leads her siblings on a journey that exposes them to the truth of their parents' beliefs. An encounter with a mysterious refugee forces Lore to rely on a person she has always been taught to hate.

From July, 1913 to the outbreak of World War I, a series of incidents take place in a German village. A horse trips on a wire and throws the rider; a woman falls to her death through rotted planks; the local baron's son is hung upside down in a mill; parents slap and bully their children; a man is cruel to his long-suffering lover; another sexually abuses his daughter. People disappear. A callow teacher, who courts a nanny in the baron's household, narrates the story and tries to investigate the connections among these accidents and crimes. What is foreshadowed? Are the children holy innocents? God may be in His heaven, but all is not right with the world; the center cannot hold. Written by [email protected]

Switzerland, 1955. The young orphan Max is sent as a foster child and contracted to work for the Bösiger family who lives on a farm. His foster parents treat him like a workhorse while their son seizes every opportunity to humiliate him. Playing the accordion is the one thing that is entirely his. But when the new teacher stands up for Max, it only makes a bad situation much worse. The only thing preserving his will to survive is his friendship with Berteli, who was also taken on to work at the farm. Max dreams of Argentina with her: a fantasy world, where allegedly even hayforks are made of silver.