Twenty-four-year-old Alexander Powell graduated from high school at age twelve, speaks six languages, has two patents, a MacArthur Foundation award, was valedictorian at the Juilliard Conservatory in New York, and salutatorian at MIT, where he finished up at the age of seventeen.

Building on his belief in the theory of the holographic universe, that points in time are linked to each other and therefore possibly accessible, he creates a device that can take 3D pictures of the past. The day after Alex uses his extraordinary new machine, he is thrown into the maelstrom of world politics spanning thirty years of history.

The embittered son of an alcoholic, Alex is obsessed with vengeance, which he drives at with unrelenting rage. But he is kept in check by the three people in his life he is closest to: Professor Burt Fenner, who nurtures Alex’s work on the machine, his chess teacher and Auschwitz survivor Rudi Lampel, and Beth, his lover, the only person who can steer his self-absorbed conscience.

Shaking Hands With Hitler is Initially set in Akron, Ohio in 1974. The work is meticulously and extensively researched, the characters deep and complex, and the story gains a steady and relentless momentum from the first page to the last.

Patrick Finley