Welcome to the website of Michael Dean.  Here, you will find information about my novels, The Crooked Cross (Quaestor2000) and Hirschfeld's Friends (Quaestor2000). 

Hirschfeld's Friends was published in November 2009.  It is set in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation.  Hans-Max Hirschfeld was Secretary General for Economic Affairs under the Nazis. He was a Jew and the Nazis knew that.  His moral dilemma is contrasted with the story of a fictional nephew in the Dutch resistance who is caught up in the Nazi razzia on the Jewish Quarter in 1941.  This real event led to the only civilian strike against the Nazis ever attempted - an event commemorated in the Netherlands every year.  

The Crooked Cross  (Quaestor2000)

I recommend that every student of history read it - John B. Willett,  Charles William Eliot Professor,  Harvard Graduate School of Education

Munich in 1933, the year of Hitler's rise to power, saw a last-ditch fight by German democracy and the beginning of the Nazi attempt to destroy the soul of mankind.  The novel pays tribute to those who fought Hitler in those early days, in Munich: the Social Democrat politicians, the journalists of The Munich Post and a group of Munich lawyers at the Ministry of Justice.  Also in the front line were the German Expressionist painters, who painted from the soul, and were therefore declared 'degenerate' by the Nazis.

Against this background,  the novel traces the journey of Gerhard Glaser, art lover and lawyer.  Glaser was Public Prosecutor in the case of Geli Raubal, Hitler's half-niece and, Glaser believes, his first murder victim.  Haunted by his failure in the Raubal case,  Glaser tries to find Hitler's drawings of Geli and solve the murder of the Jewish art dealer who had them, in a last-chance attempt to bring Hitler within the law.  But he is finally drawn in to a plot to assassinate him.

About the author

Michael Dean read history at Worcester College, Oxford and later did an MSc in Applied Linguistics at Edinburgh University.  He also has an AIL (Associate of the Institute of Linguists) in German and can read Dutch.  He worked as a teacher and lecturer in England and, for five years, in Germany, finishing as a Visiting Lecturer at City University, London.   His teaching field was ELT - English Language Teaching - which offers plenty of opportunities for writing.  He now writes historical fiction full-time. 

His favourite authors are John le Carré,  Rose Tremain,  David Lodge,  William Boyd, Sebastian Faulks and Ruth Rendell in English,  and Bernhard Schlink and Jakob Arjouni in German.

Read the prologue...