Not long after the Berlin Wall fell, three teenagers became friends in the East German town of Jena. They began attending far-right rallies with people who called themselves National Socialists: Nazis. Believing foreigners were a threat to their homeland, the three friends embarked on the most horrific string of white nationalist killings since the Holocaust. This book follows the National Socialist Underground, or NSU, from their radicalisation as young skinheads through their transformation into fully fledged terrorists carrying out bombings and assassinations while living on the run. But it’s also about something almost as terrifying: the German police and intelligence services that missed clues, mishandled far-right informants and repeatedly tried to paint the immigrant victims as mafiosos. The authorities shredded documents to cover up their mistakes and refused to acknowledge that their racism had led them astray.