38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England, and a Nazi in Patagonia

by Philippe Sands

Overview

In this intimate legal and historical detective story, the world-renowned lawyer and acclaimed author of East West Street traces the footsteps of two of the twentieth century’s most merciless criminals—accused of genocide and crimes against humanity—testing the limits of immunity and impunity after Nuremberg.

“Though nearly a decade in the making, this book could not arrive at a better time, because its subject is one of the most pressing themes of our era: impunity. . . . Sands has created an indelible and enthralling work of moral witness.” —Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing

On the evening of October 16, 1998, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested at a medical clinic in London. After a brutal, seventeen-year reign marked by assassinations, disappearances, and torture—frequently tied to the infamous detention center at the heart of Santiago, Londres 38—Pinochet was being indicted for international crimes and extradition to Spain, opening the door to criminal charges that would follow him to the grave, in 2006.

Three decades earlier, on the evening of December 3, 1962, SS-Commander Walter Rauff was arrested in his home in Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of Chile. As the overseer of the development and use of gas vans in World War II, he was indicted for the mass murder of tens of thousands of Jews and faced extradition to West Germany.

Would these uncommon criminals be held accountable? Were their stories connected? The Nuremberg Trials—where Rauff’s crimes had first been read into the record, in 1945—opened the door to universal jurisdiction, and Pinochet's case would be the first effort to ensnare a former head of state.

In this unique blend of memoir, courtroom drama, and travelogue, Philippe Sands gives us a front row seat to the Pinochet trial—where he acted as a barrister for Human Rights Watch—and teases out the dictator’s unexpected connection to a leading Nazi who ended up managing a king crab cannery in Patagonia. A decade-long journey exposes the chilling truth behind the lives of two men and their intertwined destinies on 38 Londres Street.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593319765
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/07/2025
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	480

About the Author

PHILIPPE SANDS is professor of law at the University of London, the Samuel Pisar Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, and the author of East West Street. He is a frequent commentator on CNN and the BBC World Service, and a litigator before international courts. He is the former president of English PEN. In 2003, Sands was appointed a Queen’s Counsel. He lives in London, England.

Editorial Reviews

"Though nearly a decade in the making, this book could not arrive at a better time, because its subject is one of the most pressing themes of our era: impunity. Weaving together a globe-trotting legal thriller, a personal history, and a twin portrait of a pair of mass murderers—one a fugitive Nazi, the other a head of state—Sands has created an indelible and enthralling work of moral witness." —Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing

"38 Londres Street is many books, but especially two: on the one hand, an absorbing thriller where the fates of the bloodthirsty Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and the nazi war criminal Walter Rauff intertwine, as do the present and the past, fiction and reality, chance and necessity; on the other hand, a profound, lucid and indispensable reflection on justice and impunity in a world that aspires or should aspire to universal justice. This is not only the most ambitious book Philippe Sands has written, but also his best. An enthralling read." —Javier Cercas, author of The Imposter

"In 38 Londres Street Philippe Sands combines the tone of the thriller with an astute and dramatic account of a most complex and fascinating legal case. Since Sands was present in court, there is an urgency in the narrative and a sharp sense of what was at stake. The book also offers a vivid picture of the personalities involved, including Pinochet himself, his translator, the judges, the British government and the victims of Pinochet's crimes. In the background lies evil itself in the guise of a Nazi in exile, the sinister Walther Rauff. This is a brilliant and important book." —Colm Toibin, author of Long Island

"The pace of a thriller novel, meticulously recorded and filled with urgent moral and political questions, this is Philippe Sands at his very best." —Ian Rankin, author of Midnight and Blue

"An extraordinary achievement . . . I read with open mouth and thumping heart. Sands brilliantly traces the atrocious trail of blood that leads from the death camps of Nazi Germany to the torture rooms of Pinochet's Chile. 38 Londres Street takes its place as one of the most unforgettable and important records of the systematic pitiless cruelty of which tyrannies are capable." —Stephen Fry

"A true masterpiece. Utterly compelling, a staggering piece of research and beautifully written." —Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm

"Sands is phenomenal. The research alone leaves one dazed with admiration." —Antony Beevor, author of The Second World War

“An extraordinary exposé of the collusion of Nazis with the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. . . . An international law scholar and practitioner points to the loopholes that allowed a tyrant to evade prosecution.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Reads like a detective novel, fast and compelling . . . The Pinochet case raised a controversial issue of enormous international significance.” —Jonathan Sumption, The Spectator

“[An] intriguing, beautifully observed and thoughtful book about immunity and impunity . . . Sands makes his legal arguments come alive.” —Roger Boyes, The Times (London)

“This remarkable, sweeping book completes Sands's trilogy about Nazi war crimes . . . Sands’s exhaustive research is as impressive as his storytelling.” —Paul Whitington, Sunday Independent

“Sands’s achievement is to excavate a deeper intimacy between the cases of Rauff and Pinochet . . . he follows each twist in the double narrative with an impressive combination of moral clarity and judicious detachment . . . But it is Sands’s expertise in international law, coupled with a natural storyteller's intuition for structure, that gives his latest book its understated power. His stories have all the more impact for their subtlety.” —Rafael Behr, The Guardian

“Sands is a storyteller and a scholar, capable of turning scraps into an enthralling collage . . . These questions of memory and impunity are forever timely.” —Henry Mance, Financial Times

“Well told . . . An account of how difficult it is to bring to book those guilty of the most appalling crimes.” —Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph

“The concluding part of Philippe Sands's extraordinary trilogy—part history, part moral investigation, part memoir—that documents the legal and personal battles to bring to account Nazi war criminals and their disciples . . . One of Sands’s strengths as a writer is that he resists the impulse to demonise . . . He achieves [a damning picture] with his understated doggedness.” —Andrew Anthony, The Observer

From the Publisher