provoking novel boycotted and highly applauded... Hitler loved the Bayreuth Festival. He adored Richard Wagners music. Thats the background of the novel. Bayreuth has a unique place in German history. There is no better spot to observe the radical fault lines in that history than in this small provincial German city. In a country where music has always been very important, Bayreuth and its Festival were caught up in an unprecedented way in the Nazi catastrophe. Alma Rosen, a Jewish journalist from New York, has come to Bayreuth on the trail for information about her German grandfather, a pianist, conductor, and ardent devotee of Richard Wagner's music. But all traces of him have vanished in the Nazi death camps... It's Festival Time in Bayreuth. The city is shocked by the sudden death of Siegfried Sorgel, Director of the Richard Wagner National Archive. Was it murder or suicide? What was so fascinating about the music of the anti-Semitic Wagner, who was Hitler's favorite composer, that would keep her grandfather from fleeing the hatred and persecution in Germany, and risk his life for Wagner's music? Alma intends to write a book about this. But her plans meet with mistrust in Bayreuth. She receives anonymous death threats.