The Reckoning

Mysterious murders in Manitoba and Minnesota. The victims are all refugees from war torn World War II Europe. But the deaths come long after the war, to men nearing the ends of their allotted four score and ten. The investigators, both in Manitoba and Minnesota, have two very large questions. Who is killing these people? And also....
Why?

The Reckoning is a companion volume to Ausgleich, Scales of Justice. Ausgleich is a composite book, mainstream and anecdotal history presented with a thin veneer of fiction. It is essentially history. The Reckoning, albeit born of the same primal mix as Ausgleich, evolved differently. It is fiction in all its moving parts. The history is there, too, but as the sedimentary bedrock of the book. The Reckoning fits comfortably into the mystery/suspense literary niche.

Both books deal with the cataclysms of World War II. Not the horrific Holocaust of the Jews and Gypsies, which is well known and has been extensively publicly documented. What is not well known--the victors after all write the history books--is that there were numerous ethnic cataclysms in World War II and shortly thereafter, some of which rise to the grim level of holocaust. The Reckoning, and Ausgleich, Scales of Justice, deal with these other holocausts. In particular, the German one. Hardly a popular topic in either the west or the east for a very long time.
Probably even up to today.