Book excerpt: On July 20, 1944, Adolf Hitler narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. He found the main conspirators, and quickly had them strung up on meat hooks. Axel, Count von Gottberg, was one of those hanged by Hitler. Sixty years later, Conrad Senior, a former student of one of Axel's most trusted friends, comes across some of Axel's personal letters and is immediately drawn into a dangerous web of jealousy, passion, and betrayal. The more he scrambles to uncover the truth, the more complex he finds the relationship between the two friends. Wonderfully written-and based on true events-The Song Before It is Sung is a novel of profound and sensitive insight into the human condition, surpassing all Cartwright's previous works in its scope and ambition.