An Index of Vanishing

About the book

About An Index of Vanishing

Tibet, 1938. He was sent to watch her. He never expected her to see him. Matthias Krüger arrives at a remote Himalayan monastery with simple orders: observe the Reich's most classified asset, report on her progress, and remain detached. The subject reads Dostoevsky between rifle shots, sings poetry on the high ridges at dawn, and can vanish into thin air. She looks at him like she has already made up her mind about something he hasn't. He does not stand a chance. They call her Leise. She has survived what should have unmade her, and she has not forgiven the world for it. Krüger watches her from archways and doorways and the careful middle distance. She lets him. One night, alone in his room, he plays his guitar for the first time in months, and in the morning she tells him it sounded sad, but nice. After that, he cannot look at her without forgetting his orders. He has spent his life behind a wall. She is the first person who has ever looked at him as if she could see straight through it - and worse, as if she might be willing to wait on the other side. To want her is treason. To touch her is ruin. And he has not wanted anything in years. Told through the private journal he was allowed to keep but never to fill with this, An Index of Vanishing is a slow-burn historical romance about obsession, longing, and the cost of being seen - about a man sent to evaluate a weapon, and the girl who refused to be one. Part One of a series.

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