The Taster — V.S. Alexander

The Taster answers the question, "Who killed Adolf Hitler?" It is a sweeping, epic novel, set in the most turbulent of times, filled with intrigue and terror, and, ultimately, acts of courage, self-sacrifice, and love.

Magda Ritter's parents send her to southern Germany after the start of the Allied bombings on Berlin. Magda's uncle arranges an interview with the Nazi civil service, and she is chosen as a food taster at the Berghof, Hitler's mountain retreat. Her job is to keep the dictator from being poisoned. There she meets an SS captain, Karl Weber, a conspirator, who shows her photographic proof of Nazi atrocities. As her love for Karl blossoms, Magda is convinced that Hitler's Reich must be destroyed. From her food-taster training at the Berghof to her first attempt to kill the German leader, Magda's life is populated by those who blindly serve Hitler and those who want him to die.

Karl disappears after he is implicated in the bomb plot to end the tyrant's life at the Wolf's Lair. A cruel officer sends Magda to a women's concentration camp where she experiences the same horrors as the inmates. She is later released and returns to the Wolf's Lair as the Russian army advances. She escapes to Berlin, a city under siege, where she confronts Hitler in his final hours in his bunker under the Chancellery.