MENDING FENCES is a novel that takes place near the end of WWII. Europe lay in destruction and utter chaos. The German borders are being threatened and the last available young and old men are conscripted into the final battle for their homeland. One such recruit, barely 17 years of age is one such youth asked to save their country. He was outspoken about the war, but at severe penalties, even death, he is sworn in as a German soldier with accelerated training.the rawest of recruits. He is quickly exposed to the horrors and realities of war and is captured by the American prison camp he meets up with a sadistic French civilian overseer of the prison program, singled out and subjected to the harshest of treatments. With the help of another prisoner, they set up a plan of revenge to deal with their superior, especially since he had met a French girl quite innocently and his treatment had worsened upon exposure. Otto and the French girl had formed a friendship, and when she too was exposed, she and her family were both subjected to another form of cruelty and blackmail. It appears that their friendship, however innocent, is doomed, but a strange, unexpected homecoming by a family member changes it all.