History is untidy. That's easy to forget when everything is presented to us as a timeline. I have always assumed that as World War II ended, there was a concerted international effort to round up the Nazi war criminals and bring them to justice. Quite the contrary. Those who were not recruited by the Allied countries including the USA to acquire their various areas of expertise or were not rounded up as a happenstance during final days of the armed conflict, often were allowed to blend in with the peacetime world. Some were even allowed high posts in the post war German government. The most evil fled abroad--among them Adolf Eichman who created and drove the social mechanics that carried millions of Jews to their deaths. The story of his discovery and capture are amazing. The characters involved are compelling and the power of the Nazi crimes are never undersold. Neal Bascomb does a solid job of reporting and the book is well structured so there is little confusion amidst a story that spans many countries and many years. While the book is all those things, I wished it was something else. The story starts with Eichman and we follow him in his efforts to elude capture and escape Europe. I would rather the story had started with the Jews who became his pursuers. From their perspective, even more emotion could have been drawn from the story and Eichman's crimes unraveled like the true mystery that they were after the war. Most people had never heard of Eichman or the part he played. The story of Eichman's capture was not just a criminal being brought to justice, but also a ringing justification for the existence of Israel. By the time of his capture in 1960, the world had rather successfully turned its collective back on The Holocaust. Even many living in Israel knew little of what had actually happened. His capture became a world-wide sensation and his trial an opportunity to educate a world suddenly sitting at attention. Likely without this event, the extent of stories told about The Holocaust since his capture would have been terribly muted instead of attaining a dramatic place amidst the historical/entertainment structure among western cultures. All this would have been more powerful if told from the perspective of the Jewish pursuers from the beginning instead of their taking over the story about half way through. Maybe that was thought too little focus on Eichman. Considering his crimes, that focus could not have wandered far. All that being said, an amazing and compelling true story that gladly is not lost to history's devouring tide.