Luke McCallin does the next-to-impossible, and makes a sympathetic and credible character out of a German military policeman in 1945 Sarajevo. Gregor Reinhardt is adrift in a sea of treachery, brutality and panic, as vengeful partisans tighten the noose on the German army. Amidst the disintegration, Reinhardt still attempts to track down a murderer or two and struggles to keep his own honour more or less intact. The Pale House refers to the place the Croatian Ustase militia took their victims for torture. We reviewed the first Reinhardt novel, The Man From Berlin, and the full review of the Pale House is here.