Anger smolders in Germany over the country's humiliation following the Great War. A brash Fhrer has seized on the discontent, and militarized all citizens to regain world power. Germany is no longer a democracy - it is the Third Reich.

Despite her father's misgivings over her safety, Elizabeth Schoene leaves the Bavarian Alps for Munich, hoping to attend university. She stays with her wealthy aunt, who is married to a powerful Gestapo SS officer.

In this hazardous time, showing human decency or thinking for oneself is deadly, as Elizabeth sees literally while working as a typist at Gestapo Police Headquarters. Her aunt explains that Elizabeth, who is a young ice-blonde Aryan, the Third Reich's idealized citizen, can take a luxurious seat on the "train rushing through Germany" or "stand on the tracks."

Elizabeth gets caught up in a university campus raid on student dissidents willing to "stand on the tracks." She moves along a jagged path of bittersweet choices between the indoctrinated and the hunted, but fear and treachery complicate knowing anyone's true motives.

A crucial crossroads forces her into drastic action.

Antoinette (Toni) Dietkus is the author of Riding Shotgun in an 18-Wheeler, an illustrated account of long haul trucking, and Don't Tell the Wind, a historical novel set in Europe.

A crucial crossroads forces her into drastic action.

Antoinette (Toni) Dietkus is the author of Riding Shotgun in an 18-Wheeler, an illustrated account of long haul trucking, and Don't Tell the Wind, a historical novel set in Europe.

Ghosts of Winter: A young woman encounters the Third Reich