When Gene Metcalfe boards the C-47 that is to drop him at Groesbeek Heights just outside of Nijmegen, Holland, he is handed a box of twelve dozen condoms by an overconfident British lieutenant. He iss to be among the first to jump into what should have been a picture-book meadow, free of German troops. Instead, it iss defended by three German anti-aircraft cannon emplacements.

As he jumps into a hail of bullets and exploding shells, he watches his plane roll over and plummet into the ground. At that moment, he realizes the condoms were a bad joke or the planners of Operation Market Garden seriously underestimated German resistance. Gene is listed as KIA and left for dead by his patrol, who presume the worst when they see his injuries from a shell explosion. He is dragged to an ancient castle, where he iss interrogated by the most notorious of all the Nazis: Heinrich Himmler.

The rest of Gene's story is equally gripping, as he becomes a POW held outside Munich, and is moved between various camps riddled with disease and severe undernourishment. In one of many intense scenes, Metcalfe faces off against several SS soldiers while saving the life of a severely wounded fellow paratrooper. Eventually, after an escape attempt and subsequent capture within sight of the snow-capped Swiss mountains, American troops liberate his prison camp in April 1945. Gene is set loose to explore Paris as the guest of a French medical doctor he met when the two men were confined in a Munich jail cell.

The author describes the battle scenes with sufficient detail to put readers on the edge of their seat without being outright gruesome. Metcalfe witnesses murder on both an individual scale and by the hundreds-at-a-time. The author paints a landscape that allows readers to put their imaginations to work. This book is also appropriate for a mature YA audience.