Rebecca Cantrell's intense and haunting debut novel, A Trace of Smoke, chillingly recreates a world on the brink of madness. Her crime reporter heroine Hannah Vogel takes us on an insider's tour of 1931 Berlin, as she desperately searches for her brother's killer ... a trail that leads through the city's darkest secrets to the top ranks of the rising Nazi party. Remarkably, Rebecca penned the novel James Rollins called "the stunning start to a long career" while living in ... Hawaii!

A Trace of Smoke is set in the chaotic, mesmerizing and chillingly Cabaret world of 1931 Berlin ... tell us what it's like, and how your crime reporter protagonist, Hannah Vogel, fits in.

Looking back, we know that 1931 was the year that Germany was lost to the Nazis. It was a tumultuous time. Nazi Storm Troopers and Communists battled in the streets. Wealthy Jews and intellectuals debated fleeing. Desperate sexual and social outcasts crammed Berlin's famous nightclubs to wring out one last dance. But only a few people at the time, like Joseph Roth and Count Harry Kessler, knew what the Nazi takeover would mean for their future and the future of Europe.

Hannah's not sure of what the future will bring for her or Germany, but she knows enough to be frightened. A single woman living alone and writing under the pseudonym of a male crime reporter has made her a bit of an outsider. But because of her work she has developed a strong network of other outsiders, from disenfranchised policemen to forgers to Jewish jewelers, that is going to come in very handy for her when she investigates her brother's murder, and later when she tries to keep Germany from sinking into an even darker place.

So why this era? Why this place? Why these people?

The era: The late 1920s and early 1930s saw Berlin in a time of intellectual and social freedom mixed with grinding poverty and violent protests. Berlin was a center for modern art, cinema, writing, and music. And yet within a few years it would all be gone: the artists fled, in camps, or in hiding. Just like that, an incredibly vibrant part of a modern European city vanished to be replaced by the horror of the Nazis. How could such a transition NOT be fascinating?

The place: As a teenage exchange student in the 1980s I fell in love with Berlin, its sights, sounds, tastes, and historical burden. I lived in the cold shadow of the Soviet wall, toughing it out with my gay host brother, sarcastic artists, scrappy old timers, and German draft dodgers. More flirting teenagers, guest workers, and GIs danced to Starship's "We Built this City" in the Kuh-Dorf disco than lived in my Alaskan home town of Talkeetna.

The people: Ernst Vogel, the murder victim, has been clear in my head for years. I mentioned him in a short story I started almost twenty years ago, On the Train. I knew that he had more to tell me. But I killed him in the first book, so I'm thinking of writing prequels set in the 1920s to spend more time with him. When Hannah showed up to investigate his murder, I found her tough, compassionate and full of surprises. She brought with her a full slate of friends and enemies, in addition to uncovering his.