The Tiergarten is the magnificent park in the center of Berlin. The name translates to “Garden of the Beasts”. The major embassies and fine mansions of social notables were located along its edges. This is the setting for Larson’s newest effort which begins with his question, “Why did it take so long to recognize the real danger posed by Hitler and his regime?” In 1933, the newly elected National Socialist government of Germany was beginning to consolidate its power in Berlin and implement its programs for a “new” Germany. The newly arrived American ambassador, William E. Dodd, a history professor from Chicago, (decidedly not of the traditional diplomatic corps!) and his lively, rather scandalous daughter Martha were at first charmed by the energetic revival of the country’s economy, especially when compared with other nations still sinking further into the Great Depression. But the charm of both Germany and the ambassadorship wore thin as a growing number of reports of isolated events indicated troubling distortions of civil order… and a professional bureaucracy unwilling to act, except to undermine the “inexperienced” ambassador. Even Martha, whose non-conformist networking garnered friends and lovers from every social element – journalists, communists, artists, Nazis – eventually became concerned about the increasing lawlessness -- the blatant public brutality being meted out to even non-German tourists by Nazi thugs. Through the benefit of the Dodd family records, and significant archival research, Larson is able to offer revealing vignettes of Germany and Berlin as that nation began “restructuring” the social order to reflect the rhetoric of a ruthless Nazi Party, sliding into terror and ultimately state homicide.