The novel begins with Karl Bazinger, an officer in the German army stationed in Paris. As he dresses for a day out, he starts to wonder whether his friendship with various French and other nationals will land him in trouble. There is also the nagging fact that he has been overheard speaking English at the home of his most frequent host, something that could well be misinterpreted by the German secret service. Widely travelled, highly educated and a lover of wine and women, he has enjoyed two years in Paris, but now knows that the idyllic time of occupation has come to an end.

Bazinger is particularly concerned about having been asked by the Wehrmacht (Army) to spy on his friends to ensure that the SS won't move in on the army's territory. From an ominous conversation with a superior officer, whom he happens to know from his university days, he learned that all of his movements are observed and known. Within the first few pages of the book his inner struggle between liking his military uniform and his dislike of the regime it serves, can be viscerally felt by the reader. Among his concerns are two words that now haunt him: "fatal folly". He uttered them while a little high on wine during a conversation with his intellectual friends about the German campaign in Russia. Now he wonders if he can head off impending disaster by asking to be transferred to the eastern front.

At this moment enters the second character in the form of a neighbour of Bazinger's in Lower Saxony, and a friend, who has suddenly appeared in Paris. Hans Bielenberg is a Luftwaffe (Air Force) officer. He has been sent on a one-day mission to Paris, which curiously entails delivering a French translation of Goethe's Young Werther to an antique bookseller, also known to Bazinger. Bielenberg is only a momentary character in the book, but one senses that something menacing hangs over him. In the few pages we actually meet him, he constantly suffers from fear of being followed by some unknown force. Here, briefly, the book takes on the character of a small spy novel. In later chapters Bielenberg and his wife appear only through the eyes of others.

The third character is a Russian doctor, Katia Zvesdny. She lives in Kiev, where she heals not only the body but also at times the soul of her poor patients. Her story, and her character are the most fully developed of the three. It is a tragic tale that involves her suffering not only under the yoke of the Russian regime, but now under the occupying Germans. She and Bazinger are destined to meet after he receives his marching orders to the eastern front. There he develops a strange skin rash that brings him to Zvesdny in search of healing. The rash appears to be his body's reaction to having to confront personally the atrocities being committed in Russia by his fellow countrymen and their local henchmen.

A tender love story unfolds between the two, who are enemies, yet are also kindred souls. Of course, the time will come when their story ends, but it does so with a kind of wonder that reveals writerly skills.

It must be noted that while all of the main characters are fictitious, Bielski brings in real historic characters and places within France, Germany and Russia. For one is General Karl-Heinz von Stülpnagel, the military commander of German forces in France. The story begins in April 1942. Stülpnagel acceded to the post in February of that year, strangely enough taking over from his uncle, Otto, who had asked to be removed from the post. He opposed the policies of Hitler's regime in respect to treatment of the French. His nephew, Karl-Heinz would also, but more covertly and ended up strung up with his fellow conspirators after the failed coup against Hitler in 1944. I give this detail so that readers unfamiliar with the history of WWII will understand why Bielski mentions some of the characters or places. She did her research well, for she even mentions that Bielenberg drove an Adler car. Few Germans now know this car ever existed, yet it was the car of choice for the upper middle classes of Germans before WWII. I have always found it strange that I have never come across a book by a German author who refers to this car. Most of these cars were eventually confiscated by the Nazis for the use of the higher-ups within the regime. It was a noble car, designed by no less a man than the famous architect, Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus school of design. He would later influence North American architecture through his post at the Harvard faculty of architecture.

Bielski also manages to touch on the issue that so many Russians in the Ukraine region had German ancestry, and how they had to cope with their guilt feelings about this ancestry, which dated back to immigration under Catherine the Great. These people were called "Nemetz" by the Russians (coming from the Russian for mute) because when these settlers first arrived they were unable to communicate with their Russian neighbors.

She also brings alive the early history of the famous Sandonovski Baths in Moscow, where one can still go for a steam bath today, and the Botkine Hospital (named for the doctor who looked after the hemophilic son of Czar Nicholas) and where in 1959 Lee Harvey Oswald spent a brief time in its insane asylum ward.

The Year is '42 is divided into three sections: The Seine, which describes Bazinger's life there and the encounter with his friend Bielenberg; The Elba describes Bazinger's short leave home in Lower Saxony before moving to the eastern front, and we learn more about the fate of Bielenberg and his wife; The Dnieper, by far the largest section of the book, goes into the complicated history of Dr. Zvesdney, the encounter between her and Bazinger, and the final fate of all three characters.

There is a mention of The Red Orchestra in this chapter. It was a Soviet spy organization, known in German as Die Rote Kappelle. This group's German network warned Stalin that the Nazis planned to attack Russia, which Stalin rejected. Later the group provided other vital services, but in November 1942 most of its members were arrested by the SS. Most were executed or died in concentration camps. Here is one point that I found a little hard to deal with. Bielski ends her book with the assertion that Bielenberg "was considered a trader in West Germany, and on the other side of the Berlin wall, a hero." I can believe the hero part in East Germany, but I doubt very much that the average West Germans — even now — have actually ever heard of The Red Orchestra and its operations. 1933 to 1945 has remained a mostly hidden history for most Germans, West and East.