Sealing their close ties are the deep secrets they share: Friedrich Richard’s amnesia from a bomb blast doesn’t allow his ancestry to be traced for “purity,” and the name he was given in hospital by a well-meaning doctor was from a dead German Jewish soldier. Adolf, on the other hand, suffered from a gas attack that blinded him; but hidden doctor reports diagnose Adolf as having suffered “hysterical blindness” with signs of psychopathy.
Crime! Mystery! Suspense! Oh, my! If this were Oz, crime/mystery/suspense writers would have paved the yellow brick road with vivid descriptions bathed in subtleties; they would have released clues as needed to move the story forward; they would have built in a side path or two that led to a blind alley; and, in the end, they would have lifted the curtain to reveal the Wizard hiding in Emerald City. Pulling back that curtain exposed hidden truths in L. Frank Baum’s story. Yes, truths! Oh, my!