CAUGHT IN-BETWEEN

A Review of Jonathan Rabb's SHADOW AND LIGHT

 

As Berlin Noir fans, and readers of this blog well know, there are many authors who have chosen to play in Philip Kerr's Berlin sandbox, but few do it as well as Jonathan Rabb. SHADOW AND LIGHT was my first Rabb novel and is the second (to date) featuring Kriminal-Oberkommissar Nikolai Hoffner. It will not be my last.

Not only does Rabb go a great job of making pre-Nazi Berlin spring to life around the reader in this tale of murder amidst the German film industry in 1927, but he also peoples the tale with fleshed-out characters. The sights and sounds are present but also, and, more importantly, the man-on-the-street feel of a people tainted by crime as a means to get by. Everyone has an angle, betrayal is to be expected. It's dog eat dog and the Nazi wolves are lurking in the shadows.

The story kicks off with a UFA executive found murdered in his bathtub. Hoffner has to walk a razor's edge between the studio suspects and organized crime when he has no choice but to go to a gangster familiar to him for help as things get too hot for him to handle. The trail soon leads to underground pornography, the rise of the Nazis, clashes between Brown Shirts and Communists, and the re-armament of Germany.

SHADOW AND LIGHT is a captivating read. It does everything it sets out to do and does it very well. Plots and sub-plots abound. The action is sparse but riveting. Hoffner, and his sons... well, this isn't an episode of My Three Sons and their relationship is painfully depicted, warts and all, as Hoffner tries to balance his personal and professional lives.

Jonathan Rabb is the best Berlin Noir author I've read since Philip Kerr got the ball rolling with MARCH VIOLETS back in 1989. His style is sparse and makes you pay attention. The novel gets a little bogged down at the outset with Hoffner's back story, which is slightly off-putting, but when the narrative kicks into high gear, the novel delivers.

Readers looking to give Rabb a try might want to start with ROSA - the first Hoffner novel set in Berlin in 1919. I'll be hunting up a copy of that one myself for a future Berlin Noir review. For now, though, I give SHADOW AND LIGHT my highest recommendation.

Next up at Berlin Noir will be SILESIAN STATION by David Downing followed by K. W. Jeter's ebook, THE KINGDOM OF SHADOWS, a Berlin noir novel that may have slipped beneath the radar of some readers. Until next time, keep reading!

CATCH YOUR BREATH

A Review of A MAN WITHOUT BREATH by Philip Kerr

A new Bernie Gunther novel is always a noteworthy event for Berlin Noir fans and A MAN WITHOUT BREATH marks the first new release in the short lifespan of this blog. So without further ado, let's see how the ninth Gunther novel measures up.

The year is 1943 and the Nazis are trying to pick up the pieces after the surrender at Stalingrad. This devastating event sets the tone for the novel. Gunther novels have been cynical in the past, but A MAN WITHOUT BREATH takes it to new levels. And rightly so as, at the point the tale kicks off, only the most fanatical Nazi still believes Germany will somehow prevail and win the war. Fatalism has replaced optimism and Gunther has some company in his misery.

The novel opens with Gunther in Berlin, working for the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau and the irony of this entity should not be lost on the reader. Gunther has been working with a witness to a war crime involving the British Navy's sinking of a German hospital ship. The witness is a Jew but the Nazis are prepared to overlook that for the moment so long as good propaganda against their enemies will result from the investigation. It is while in this capacity that Gunther has his world yanked out from under him, literally. An RAF bomb strike on the building he's in collapses the structure around him and this is the metaphor for the entire novel. Germany has had the rug of Hitler's invincibility yanked out from under it with the recent defeat and Gunther's near-death in the rubble echoes this while foreshadowing what is coming for the country in the next couple of years.

Still reeling, Gunther is given the task of investigating a massacre of Polish officers by the Soviets in the Katyn forest near Smolensk. If true, the Nazis hope to have a strong propaganda tool to combat the Allies' claims of such atrocities being committed in the name of the German people. Given the task of handling the matter by Goebbels himself, Gunther reluctantly heads to Smolensk to continue the investigation.

That is the basic set up of the novel and the rest of the action plays out in and around the forest for the most part. As always, Kerr provides encyclopedic local details and the cast of characters he surrounds Gunther with are well-rounded characters. Even the monsters have shades to them. The plot twists and turns nicely as the investigation is soon complicated by multiple murders and as many suspects all while Gunther stumbles into the budding assassination attempts being plotted to remove Hitler. The suspects are many, the answer few as Gunther balances getting Goebbels want he wants while wrestling with the hopelessness and insanity of the situation where the mass grave the Soviets created through wholesale slaughter is probed while the nearby ones the SS themselves filled with murdered civilians are ignored - all while it's only a matter of time before the Russian counter-offensive drives the Germans out of the area for good and all. It's a rich tapestry Kerr gives us and combined with the engaging mysteries makes for riveting reading.

Threatened at every turn, Gunther must walk a razor's edge as he has done in his past work for the Nazis but this time he goes over that edge in a defining moment for the character that will forever change your perception of the man. His motivations for doing so should be a matter of great debate amongst Berlin Noir fans.

The novel is quick paced, interesting at every turn of the plot and steeped in period details. The result is one of the best entries into the series.

The sole misstep that slightly soured the reading experience is the romantic plot shoe-horned into the narrative. As a long-time hardboiled mystery fan/writer myself, I'm well aware that a romantic interest is one of the tropes of the genre. Gunther has had many in the past, usually with disastrous results, but they have fit the tales and their pre-war, war and post-war settings. But the romantic entanglement in BREATH comes across as too forced, present as a 'necessary' aspect of the genre rather than an integral part of the story. When the beautiful scientist showed up to exchange quips with Gunther before hopping into bed, I rolled my eyes and groaned. The rich plotlines of the novel were hampered by the prerequisite love interest this time out and I breathed a sigh of relief when this subplot was dispensed with.

This one aspect of A MAN WITHOUT BREATH should not deter Gunther or Berlin Noir fans from reading the novel. There is enough intrigue and moral complexity tinged with impending doom to satisfy any discerning reader of historical mystery. Kerr still leads the Berlin Noir field by a long margin and his strengths as a novelist and storyteller are showcased here. Sure to spur some debate amongst readers, A MAN WITHOUT BREATH will leave you breathless. Don't miss it.

DAVID DOWNING'S BERLIN NOIR OFFERINGS TO DATE

BERLIN NOIR GALLERY 5

A FITTING RETURN

A Review of Philip Kerr's THE ONE FROM THE OTHER

After finishing A GERMAN REQUIEM, author Philip Kerr took a break from Bernie Gunther to plough other literary pastures. That break lasted 15 years. Sure, the break today means nothing as all of the books are readily available, but, at the time, fans spent years wondering if we'd ever stalk through the filthy streets of Berlin with Gunther again. So when Gunther returned in THE ONE FROM THE OTHER, fans had high hopes and, more importantly, high expectations. I'm pleased to say that Bernie returned in style.

After a Prologue featuring Bernie Gunther's eventful trip to from Berlin to Palestine in 1937 where Gunther is embroiled in the wheeling and double-dealing around the exodus of Jews fleeing the Nazis, the novel jumps ahead to 1949 where we find Gunther in Munich. His wife has suffered a mental following the death of her father and Gunther finds himself trying to run a vacant hotel near the Dachau concentration camp. Needless to say, business is not good.

From here, a series of events begin that had me thinking, I will admit, that Gunther's fourth outing would be the first misstep in what had been, up until then, a stellar series. Following on the heels of the Palestine flashback, an American comes to the hotel with a hostage and forces him to unearth gold stolen from Jewish inmates of the camp. Then the situation with Bernie's wife comes to a head while he gets a case from a German woman hoping she has been widowed by the war so that she can re-marry and forget about the Nazi monster that was her first husband. From here, Bernie becomes embroiled in the Nazi underground railroad funneling wanted war criminals out of Germany to Argentina. Kerr hits us with so many plot threads that I found myself thinking that he'd made a few false starts over the 15 years between books 3 and 4 that he decided to just use all of the plots he'd come up with in a throw-everything-at-the-reader ploy to get Bernie back into action.

Man, was I wrong! THE ONE FROM THE OTHER hits its stride after Gunther is subjected to a cringe-inducing 'lesson' at the hands of skulking Nazi butchers though this is not evident at first. Recovering from his assault, Kerr gives Gunther yet another situation for the reader to absorb. This time, he is in a remote chalet where he is enlisted to secure the owner's inheritance. I should point out here that Kerr stoops to a creaking plot device to make this part of the story work. It is the novel's only misstep, but it is a doozy that could turn some readers off. This is fiction after all and one's suspension of disbelief should be operating at full power. That said, the twist does strain credibility.

However, once over that hump, Gunther is pummeled from all sides. The noose is tightening and it truly seems like there will be no way out for our hero. Watching Gunther squirm like a fish on a hook makes for some great reading as the bodies pile up as fast as the double crosses. He is a survivor and nowhere is that better displayed than in the ironic twist that characterizes the final pages of THE ONE FROM THE OTHER.

The novel, of course, features Kerr's unmatched eye for period detail and his ability to set each scene so vividly. The details are rich, precise, specific and prolific and yet, at no time, do they read like a Wikipedia entry. Kerr also demonstrates a singular knack for creating monsters that terrify us with their humanity. He gives us a glimpse into the Nazi mentality that few have managed over the years. Kerr has done his homework and it shows.

THE ONE FROM THE OTHER is one of the strongest entries in the series. However, it's not a good starting point for those new to Berlin Noir or the Gunther books. For the initiated though, it will get the job done. Do not miss it.

Next week we'll be breaking with tradition here at Berlin Noir. In the past, we've alternated between Gunther novel reviews and the books that have followed since the original trilogy. That format will return. However next week, I'll be reviewing A MAN WITHOUT BREATH since it has just been released and has Berlin Noir fans everywhere talking. See you next week.