This novel picks up right where the first book left off, as its five interrelated families, American, German, Russian, English, Welsh, enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs. Carla von Ulrich, born of German and English parents, finds her life engulfed...

Lie down with lions: An American man, a French physician, and a English woman are terrorized by the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Eye of the needle: One enemy spy knows the secret if the Allies' greatest deception, a brilliant aristocrat and ruthless assassin--code name: "The Needle"--who holds the key to the ultimate Nazi victory. Only one person stands in his way: a lonely Englishwoman on an isolated island, who is coming to love the killer...