Death in Breslau [Hardcover]

The story begins in 1950 in a Dresden psychiatric hospital, where the director is being pressed by a Stasi official who wants to question the patient named Herbert Anwaldt. Herbert Anwaldt's identity and the reason he is a patient are questions the author answers as the book moves back and forward in time, beginning in 1933 in Breslau (now Wroc'aw). The main character of this novel (and the four that follow) is Counsellor Eberhard Mock, who in 1933 was the Deputy Head of the Criminal Department of the Police Praesidium. That year, Hermann Göring had taken over the posts of Minister of Internal Affairs and Chief of the Prussian police. The Nazis had become very active in the Police Praesidium, and an entire wing of the building had been taken over by the Gestapo.

Mock is summoned to a side track of the main railway station, where he finds the bodies of Marietta von der Malten and her governess in a saloon car, savagely raped and murdered. Clues left behind include some dead scorpions, some live ones, and some cryptic writing in blood on the wall of the train car. Mock knows the dead girl and her father, the Baron, a fellow Mason and someone to whom he owes a great deal. His investigation leads him to Friedländer, a Jewish importer specializing in strange "vermin," which makes the Nazi anti-Jewish propagandists very happy. It also solves some of Mock's political problems, and the arrest leads to Mock's promotion as Criminal Director. But it's not the end of the story -- after Friedländer "commits suicide", the Baron receives a package containing some clothing that had belonged to his daughter and realizes that the real killer is still out there somewhere. Herbert Anwaldt, an alcoholic policeman from Berlin, is summoned to work with Mock to secretly discover the identity of the real murderer.

This book is as dark as dark gets. Spies are everywhere, Mock has enemies that would like to bring him down, the Gestapo is a force to be reckoned with. The sinister atmosphere does not let up for a moment. The characters are well developed, especially Mock, who although married, spends his Friday evenings at a brothel playing chess with two lovely women (one under the table, one at the table) who know that "every successful move was assigned a specific erotic configuration." He is quite adept at playing the game with the Nazis, and becomes a master of the art of self protection, both physically and politically. There are many other characters who indulge in hedonistic delights, and there are the Nazis, and nearly everyone seems to have secrets that they'll do anything to keep hidden. And if ever a book captured a place and a time, it's this one.

Death in Breslau is stunning, a novel you won't forget any time soon after reading. While it's great fun, it's also claustrophobic sometimes as you sink deeper and deeper into the world of the dark and sybaritic side of Breslau and its inhabitants. It's also an excellent look at the politics and changing Europe of the 1930s. I absolutely loved this book and very highly recommend it to readers who want something truly edgy and way off the beaten path in their crime fiction.

I couldn't put this book down. There isn't a lot of literature in English regarding Silesia, as fiction or nonfiction. This book (and the second one "The End of the World in Breslau", which I am half-way through) provide a fictional account of life in the big city of Breslau before World War II.
I found this book and the second one very well written and translated. The writing style reminds me of Ian Fleming.
But, I have to admit that these books may not appeal to many people. I love them because I can relate the streets and buildings to personal experiences. I spent two weeks last year in Wroclaw and went back again this year, for family history research in Breslau and the villages north of it around Trebnitz (now Trzebnica). I visited many of the spots mentioned in the books and have my photographs, and 1935 and 1939 street maps of Breslau, to help me visualize the story as it unfolds. My small part of the family left Silesia for America in 1840, but a large number of our relatives lived in Breslau during the periods covered by these books. The old Breslau address books available on the Internet helped me locate and photograph where they lived.
Perhaps, the books should have included basic maps to help other readers. But, great maps of Breslau from the periods discussed in the books can be found on the Internet.
I hope the other books written by the author are translated and available soon.

This is a dark, noir novel, which is both bizarre and extreme. In the heat of a pre-war summer a seventeen year old girl and her governess are discovered murdered in a railway carriage, with their intestines and stomach slashed, scorpion's in the stomach cavity of the girl and strange writing, in blood on the wall. Enter Councsellor Eberhard Mock, the Deputy Head of the Criminal Department of the Police Praesidium, who knew the young girl since she was a child and owes much of his career to her father, Baron von der Malten. However, the discovery of who murdered young Marietta is complicated by many things, including a large number of people who have a rather cynical view of the truth. For the novel takes place in Breslau in 1933, where the rise of the Nazi party is causing power within the police department to change hands and those with secrets, which includes virtually everyone in this novel, have reason to fear the truth coming out.

I feel this will be something of a marmite book. It is neither a straightforward crime story, nor really a story about the rise of the Nazi's, although it encompasses both. Rather it is a dark and twisted tale of revenge, mysterious curses and the underbelly of a city in Europe which is changing beyond all recognition. Be prepared to simply go with the flow and enter the author's world. I am sure that I will be reading on in this series.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 5 reviews  4.6 out of 5 stars