Berlin, 1940. The city is paralysed by fear. But one man refuses to be scared.
Otto, an ordinary German living in a shabby apartment block, tries to stay out of trouble under Nazi rule. But when he discovers his only son has been killed fighting at the front he's shocked into an extraordinary act of resistance, and starts to drop anonymous postcards attacking Hitler across the city. If caught, he will be executed.
Soon this silent campaign comes to the attention of ambitious Gestapo inspector Escherich, and a murderous game of cat-and-mouse begins. Whoever loses, pays with their life.

Hans Fallada was born in Germany in 1893. His life was checkered by a failed adolescent suicide pact in which his friend died, addiction to morphine and alcohol, periods of incarceration in prison and mental hospitals, and brushes with the Nazi regime. His most famous novels include Little Man, What Now?, The Drinker and Alone in Berlin, written in 24 days. Fallada died weeks before its publication, in February 1947 in Berlin.
Michael Hofmann is a poet and translator from the German. For Penguin he has translated four books by Hans Fallada, in addition to works by Franz Kafka, Ernst Jünger, Irmgard Keun and Jakob Wassermann.