The Sudetenland. To Europe's well-heeled in the Nineteenth Century, this was a place of world-renowned spa resorts nestled in the mountains ringing Western Bohemia. But bad blood and unfinished business from the first World War had taken their toll on the Sudetendeutsche - three million ethnic Germans unhappily living in the new nation of Czechoslovakia. In 1930 they were just one more ethnic complication among many in Central Europe. Eight years later, these people had found a champion in Adolph Hitler, and the smart money wagered the next World War would detonate in these storybook mountains and valleys. Sudetenland is a sweeping historical novel set against Central European intrigue during the late 1930s leading up to 1938s Munich Conference. The characters are the smart and sometimes wise-cracking men and women of this era - the foreign correspondents, intelligence officers, diplomats and career military - who are on the front lines of that decade's most dangerous political crisis. Sudetenland introduces readers to Jan Burda, the Czech intelligence officer who must thwart the Nazis operating on his own soil; Ros Talmadge, who is trying to make a name for herself as a foreign correspondent while staying one step ahead of her mercurial boss; Dietrich Morgen, the street brawler from Hamburg who found a home in Himmler's SS; Ladislaw Capka, the Czechoslovak army tank commander who is determined to take the fight into Germany if war comes; Nathan Bulloch, the American military attach in Prague who wanted to see the world but saw little reason in getting killed doing so; and Anton Krisch, who comes out of the Esterwegen concentration camp a much more dangerous man than when he was thrown in. With remarkable attention to historical detail, Sudetenland also features many of the actual personages who played a vital role during the international crisis. Hitler's unshakeable will demands that the Sudetenland be ripped from Czechoslovakia and joined with Germany. If Czechoslovak president Edvard BeneA will not give up Bohemian territory willingly, then Hitler orders that it be taken by force. As the crisis builds over the summer of 1938, any spark, any perceived indignity could ignite the German dictator's rage and start the war the leaders of Great Britain and France are so determined to avoid. Sudetenland takes readers behind the scenes into the deliberations and high drama taking place within the major capitals of Europe as the continent hurtles toward the crucible of a shooting war.