Lara's Shadow

Eli Schneider hates Germans as hard as anyone can hate. And for good reason. Then he falls in love with one of them.

Lara's Shadow is told against the backdrop of post-World War II Germany and the tensest moments of the Cold War. Eli is a young lieutenant in the U.S. Army, a Jew expected to defend the perpetrators of the Holocaust. While he struggles to protect his aging alcoholic company commander from a mutinous junior officer, he meets fraulein Lara Kohler. He initially pursues her just for sex, but it's her quirky personality and fascinating mind that ensnare him. In a country filled with former Nazis, there are bound to be secrets. He uncovers one layer of Lara's secrets after another until he must ask how much he can be expected to forgive. And how much responsibility she must carry for others' sins?

Lara's Shadow is a love story full of perplexities that strain the limits of atonement and forgiveness. It probes the mixture of good with evil, and the visitation of parents' guilt on their children.