Review of _In the Garden of the Beast_ by Erik Larson.

Erik Larson's, In the Garden of the Beast (Crown Pub., 2011) is a somewhat interesting story of the US Ambassador William Dodd family while they served in Hitler's Germany in the first years of the Nazi dictatorship.  Dodd, an history professor at the University of Chicago, was appointed by FDR as fifth choice and was not entirely suited for this posting.  His daughter, Martha, who went along for the adventure and to get away from a husband, provides romantic interest via her liaisons with American literary figures, the head of the Gestapo and a Soviet spy who serves as a scout to bring her into the Soviet spy network. The book gives interesting observations of the times and people involved, the workings of the US State Department, and is written in the narrative nonfictional style which nevertheless offers copious footnotes from documents of the period.

Thank you to Melvin Steely for his review.