History and the fate of great nations often turns on remarkably small events--a note dropped on the ground, a garbled radio message, or a case of mistaken identity... Or one person who goes against his or her nature for a split second and causes the elaborate machinery of war and politics to completely break down. During World War II, occupied Paris was a city filled with people acting contrary to their better natures. The Saints Departed, is a novel of these ordinary/extraordinary people and their supreme moments when regimes could suddenly topple, leaders falter, and the course of war irrevocably change direction. Based on many factual plots and stories, The Saints Departed centers around an ill-fated love affair between an overconfident German agent and a female French Resistance fighter bent on revenge, who find themselves entwined in a massive conspiracy that will end either with Hitler's death and a pre-invasion peace with the Allies, or a persecution of the French people far worse than anything imaginable