This novel is set in Germany and German-occupied Europe in the final months of 1941. It opens on November 17th 1941, the day that the Japanese First Air Fleet sailed from Japan's Inland Sea on the first leg of its long voyage to Pearl Harbour. None of the novel's characters, fictional or otherwise, knew that such a voyage was underway until December 7th, when the First Air Fleet reached its destination and brought America into the war.