• Age: 18
• Grade: 12

In January of 1936, our loquacious and unreliable narrator, Kurtis De’ath arrives in London on the orders of Adolf Hitler. Kurtis is loaded with secrets, confections, and more than a few mysteries. Closeting his other identities (Herr Death, mysterious confidant of Adolf Hitler, and the Wagner Family’s Shokoladenmann, dispenser of the delightful Bird Bonz), he becomes fellow Maritimer, Lord Beaverbrook’s gossip columnist for the Daily Express and is immediately drawn into the political and social British maelstrom of Abdication and Appeasement. Deftly working his way through the class and clutter of English society as Kurtis Tod, he does his best to keep old friends (Erl Echland, Ulrich Roller, Bella Fromm), make new ones (Tom Driberg, William Joyce, ‘Huge’ Castlerosse), confound his enemies (Joseph Ball, Maxwell Knight, Josef Goebbels), and to derive some sense out of it all as the world edges even closer to a second Great War. And, when things get a little nasty, it may be that Kurtis De’ath is just the fellow you want on your side.

Set in multiple locales in Canada, America, France, Germany, and England, before and during the Second World War, Volume Two of The Reflecting Man is the antic, ribald journey of a loquacious and unreliable narrator, Kurtis De’ath, from the Maritimes in Canada, whose unusual talents lead him into the innermost circles of Hitler’s Third Reich and Churchill’s British government. Kurtis’ journey through the roots and branches of actual historical figures and events is, at its heart, in meticulous detail, an examination of how Europe went to war in 1939. The Reflecting Man is himself a reflection of his times. The novel is widely and deeply researched, employing hundreds of non-fiction accounts, journals, and diaries of actual participants and observers of the darkening clouds over Europe and the descent into war.

D.K.R. Boyd (aka, David Boyd and David Collins) is an award-winning Canadian author residing in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, who has published more than 25 books for children, young adults, and adults. Educated and raised in St. Stephen, he attended Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. He was awarded a Prime Minister of Canada’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 1998 for the development of creative writing e-courses. From 1996-1999, he was the chairman of the board of The READ-IN!™, the world’s largest online telecommunications project for children at that time, involving dozens of international children’s authors connecting via live texting with students in schools around the globe.

D.K.R. Boyd's profile page

"'When I hear a ripping tale I do like to pass it along,' and the bulk of The Reflecting Man consists of one ripping tale after another. This is infectiously readable stuff." - Historical Novel Society

“Dense and yet compelling, Boyd's prose and detail make for a read that is witty and paced just right as it weaves through modern history in a way that I have not seen since Dorothy Dunnett conquered the events of the late Middle Ages.” - Amazon