INTO THE SONSET

A Review of Jonathan Rabb's THE SECOND SON

Jonathan Rabb's Berlin trilogy began with ROSA, continued with SHADOW AND LIGHT and wraps up with THE SECOND SON, which shifts the action from Berlin to the Spanish Civil War.

However the tale kicks off in Berlin. The year in 1936, the Olympics are about to begin, but Detective-Inspector Hoffner has problems. He's retiring from Kripo after decades of dedicated service. Now run by goons brought in to strong-arm the Nazi government's policies, Kripo isn't what it used to be and it's certainly not a place for a cop with Jewish heritage.

Hoffner cuts himself loose, retiring with full pension, before they can throw him out. All is not rosy in the detective's world. His eldest son, Sasha, has become a die-hard Nazi and they are no longer in contact with one another. Georg, his youngest, is in Spain as a photographer when war breaks out and the boy goes missing. All Hoffner has is Georg's young wife and his grandson left in Berlin and he soon turns his back on them in favor of searching through Spain for his missing son.

Once there, Hoffner gets caught up in the game or war. Shady characters abound, corrupt army officials, gun-runners, profiteers, and the quiet incursion of German forces and supplies injected into the mix in the hopes of affecting the outcome. And there might be more to Georg's presence in Spain than his father knew. Is Georg still alive? Can Hoffner save his own skin let alone his son's?

These questions drive the narrative which clearly creeps into Alan Furst territory with mostly enjoyable results. Rabb is great at creating a sense of place and turning that ability to a new canvas, Spain, his evocation of the locales rings true. You start to sweat by the second page and you'll be squinting into an imaginary sun by the time you finish the first section.

Rabb's plot also takes some interesting turns. And it's a good thing as the elements of the story show their age. The devil-may-care scoundrels, the female doctor trying to make a difference love interest for Hoffner in a world torn about. There's really nothing new here and experienced readers will have no trouble at all in untangling these simple story knots. The novel's pace also gets bogged down with endless exposition and characters explaining everything to each other. I found the thrust of the story was lost on me about halfway through and the search for the missing son, the needle in a very large haystack, gets sidetracked a bit too much.

Overall, THE SECOND SON is not a bad book. Rabb can write and it shows. Also, seeing Hoffner's journey being brought to an end in a satisfactory, and memorable, manner that lies outside the fence-straddling of many thrillers desperate to appeal to a mass audience is very refreshing. Rabb's characters make hard choices and must live with the consequences. In a world poised for a descent into hell, there are no pure happy endings. Hoffner and his loved ones walk that hard road for us and it's their humanity that shines through even when the blood flows.

THE SECOND SON holds up as a standalone novel though I would recommend the entire trilogy so you can fully appreciate the events of the third novel. ROSA, SHADOW AND LIGHT, and THE SECOND SON are not classics but they are good, solid reads that take chances. I recommend them all.

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

A Review of Philip Kerr's HITLER'S PEACE

For the last review of 2013 (see Program Note below), I thought it would be fun to do something a little bit different. HITLER'S PEACE by Philip Kerr is not, technically, Berlin Noir though there are chapters set in the German capital, which means it kind of qualifies. This is something of a 'lost' novel as it languishes in the shadow of Kerr's excellent Bernie Gunther series, a fate it, to some extent, deserves but the novel is not without its merits. Read on.

HITLER'S PEACE is a sprawling tale set against a canvas as wide as the globe. The year is 1943 and the war rages on. Enter Professor of Philosophy Willard Mayer who is at the White House for a very important meeting. Yes, he is waiting to meet with FDR. Over the course of that meeting, Mayer, who works for the OSS in a minor capacity, is asked to do a routine report to determine the veracity (or falsity) of claims made by the Nazis that the Soviet Union massacred more than 4000 officers and men in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. The event and location will be familiar to Gunther fans from the recently released A MAN WITHOUT BREATH. This plays out as world leaders, including Himmler and other high-ranking Nazis, are engaged in secret peace talks to bring the war to an end. The Nazis, faced with the reality that the war is lost but burdened with FDR's demand for unconditional surrender, are desperate to save what they can of their empire by any means necessary. Those means also include Operation Long Jump - a bold plan to infiltrate Abwehr agents into the conference and then bomb the Big Three when they gather for Churchill's birthday party.

Big games for big stakes. That's what marks HITLER'S PEACE. Kerr is not fooling around here. With so much going on, the story jumps around from Washington, Berlin, Posen in Poland, London, Cairo, the Ukraine, Iran and the Atlantic Ocean and, of course, the conference itself in Teheran. As I said above, this novel gets around. Kerr does an excellent job of re-creating these places for the reader and his immersive details are well showcased here. That said, the case could be made that Kerr also bites off more than he can chew. The novel lacks focus with all of this jumping around and an interesting plot becomes the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Mayer investigates the Katyn report. He pines for an loses his girlfriend while engaging in infidelities. He's framed for murder, suspects Nazis spies around FDR and gets into a dust up or two. And he just might be arrested as a traitor. Interesting stuff, but Mayer is an anti-hero and not in the same class as Kerr's more famous creation. You don't root for him. In fact, Kerr goes out of his way to ensure you dislike him thus rendering the Guntherian tangles Kerr places Mayer in a little less riveting especially set against the backdrop of world peace hanging in the balance.

The novel does have its moments though. Aside from Mayer's tangles, there's a murder aboard a Navy vessel, the Abwehr agents preparing their mission, and some nice surprises at the conference itself. Kerr also keeps the action moving though the book, at times, reads more like the summary of a series of books than a single cohesive story.

I think that HITLER'S PEACE is worth your time. It's not classic Kerr, it doesn't come anywhere near the Gunther books, but it's a read that, ultimately, will be worth your time. It's not Kerr's a-game but his b-game is no slouch. While you're waiting for the next Gunther book to be released, you could do a lot worse than HITLER'S PEACE to while away the time. Put this one down as a few steps above average. Not a home run, but a solid bit of hitting regardless.

PROGRAM NOTE

The review of HITLER'S PEACE will be the last review of the year. What a year it's been! And we're not going anywhere! The thinking here is that the holiday season is upon us and things tend to get busy for us all no matter what our connection to Christmas. With that in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to put the reviews on hold until things settled down in January and we've all caught our breath. So, worry not, there will be more reviews in 2014. 

I started BERLIN NOIR REVIEWS to shine the spotlight on this great mystery sub-genre that has gone beyond Philip Kerr's incredible Bernie Gunther series and, at first, didn't think there was enough stuff out there to keep the blog going. Boy, was I wrong! Looking over the year's reviews, it's clear that plenty of writers have taken up the challenge of recreating Berlin before, during and after the war. I love this stuff. Sure, the reviews, sometimes, don't reflect that, but it's true. I never crack a Berlin Noir book with any feeling other than excitement.

And the excitement continues! With more than 5000 visits to the blog since it began, I am amazed and stunned to say nothing of bursting with gratitude for everyone who has dropped by to read the reviews. If I haven't reviewed your favorite Berlin Noir book, worry not. I'll get to them all eventually.

So thanks for a great year, folks! I hope everyone has a great holiday. Get rested and charged up for the new year! Berlin Noir Reviews will see you in January, 2014! Happy Holidays!

SUFFER THE CHILDREN

A Review of Paul Grossman's CHILDREN OF WRATH

Although published after Grossman's novel, THE SLEEPWALKERS, CHILDREN OF WRATH is actually a prequel to that first Willi Kraus adventure. The first novel was set in 1932 but in this second tale of Kripo's most famous, and Jewish, detective, Grossman takes us back to the end of 1929 to show us how Kraus made a name for himself.

 

Kraus, a decorated WWI hero, begins an investigation into a found bag of gnawed human bones. The bones of children. Yes, Berlin has become the hunting ground for a serial killer preying on the denizens of the street and Kraus is determined to hunt the killer down. However, with more enemies than friends in the police department, Kraus soon finds himself taken off the case and given the job of uncovering the proliferation of tainted meat at the city's slaughterhouses. Lives have been lost and his bosses want this cleared up quickly while the search for the serial killer is put in the hands of a detective more fitted (read: more Aryan) to handle the high-profile investigation.

Undaunted, Kraus investigates both cases - one officially, the other during his spare time.

What follows is not for the squeamish. But, first, how does Grossman handle the history? Very well, actually. The novel has that ever-elusive immersive feel to the setting. Details are occasionally heavy but that is the nature of the beast with historical fiction and Grossman has done his research - in spades. The look, the feel, sights and sounds - all are here and the reader is transported to the Berlin of 1929-1930 before jumping to 1947 for a very brief Epilogue that has little bearing on the plot. The sexual 'deviance' of Weimar Berlin is well presented and set against the political upheaval in motion as the Republic goes through its death throes.

Now a word of warning for you faint of heart. Want to know how the Berlin slaughterhouses operated in 1929? Want to know EVERYTHING about the slaughterhouses? You'll find out in these pages. And that's just the beginning. Let me repeat, the novel deals with the abduction, murder and butchering of children and there is no light road to tread with this subject. Grossman could easily, and disastrously, tried to straddle the fence with this material in the hope of appealing to the widest audience. Thankfully he does not do this with CHILDREN OF WRATH. The novels pulls no punches. I was not put off by the subject matter but feel compelled to mention that, for those who are, this novel may offend. The novel is graphic, bloody and disturbing. Examples of child torture and abuse appear in these pages. You've been warned.

Grossman does a very good job of permitting us to walk a mile in his hero's shoes. The investigation is well handled as are the office politics and antisemitism. Kraus's personal life and how the job affects his relationships is realistically depicted but takes up too much space in the book when you consider the gravity of the subject matter cast against the history and the extremely well depicted expanding shadow of Nazism. This last is one of the highlights of the novel, the odd touch here and there that slowly grows until the end of the novel is but the beginning of the end of Germany.

The end result is an engaging read I guarantee you will never forget. As a whole, the novel is a tad uneven and the prose is often uninspired especially when the novel drifts into Kraus's domestic problems. As this is a series some of the less than familial bliss Kraus experiences pays off in THE SLEEPWALKERS. A good bit of action tinged with melodrama at the end give the novel the kind of spice I like in a thriller.

Ultimately, I recommend CHILDREN OF WRATH. It's well-researched, transports the reader to that turbulent time in Berlin and is unflinching in its approach to unsettling subject matter. I'd put Grossman behind Philip Kerr and Jonathan Rabb on the list of best Berlin Noir practitioners. A third Kraus adventure, BROTHERHOOD OF FEAR, is set to be released early next year. It appears to be set entirely in France which will keep it from being reviewed here but I'll certainly give it a read. Grossman is an author to watch.