Analysis

This is the scene that Death describes earlier in “The Floating Book (Part I),” but now Death tells us how The Whistler ended up in the river. Liesel and Rudy continue to be terrorized by leaders who embody Hitler’s ideals: Chemmel and Deutscher. This attack of the bad upon the good, the dark upon the light, mirrors on a much smaller scale what is happening all over Germany and what is happening to Max Vandenburg, as has been forced to hide in the Hubermanns’ basement.