3 Stars
This is the fourth book in the German police procedural
series featuring detectives Oliver van Bodenstein and Pia Kirchhoff but it’s
the first to be translated into English.
Eleven years ago, two teenage girls disappeared from
Altenhain. Both were last seen in the
company of Tobias Sartorius, and, though their bodies were never found, he was,
based on circumstantial evidence, convicted of their murders and sent to prison
for ten years. He always protested his innocence, but since he experienced an
alcohol-induced blackout, he’s not completely certain.
When the novel opens, Tobias, now in his early 30s, has
served his sentence and just returned to Altenhain. The villagers shun him and begin a campaign
of intimidation, except for his friend Nadia, a childhood friend/now famous
actress who stayed in touch with him during his incarceration, and Amelie, a sympathetic
newcomer who befriends him. When Amelie disappears, Tobias is again suspected
of foul play. The past has returned with
a vengeance as history seems to repeat itself.
There are so many characters that it can sometimes be
difficult to remember who is who. To
complicate the situation, there are so many connections between the
villagers: “Everyone in the village was
related to someone who lived only a couple of blocks away, and everyone knew
the family histories of everyone else.
They also knew the darkest secrets and liked to gossip about the
transgressions, failures, and illnesses of their neighbors.” And it seems that everyone in that village is
suspected/guilty of committing some heinous crime! I could not but be reminded of a soap opera
in which everyone has a secret agenda and is always plotting against
someone. Also as in soap operas filmed
on sets, much takes place in one location; in the novel the Sartorius barn
seems to be the gathering place for the entire community.
A lot of the backstories of characters are given so I almost
started a cheat sheet to help me remember details. Several of the detectives also have personal
crises with which to contend so there are about a dozen subplots. Since this is the fourth book of the series,
there are references to previous cases which mean little to the English reader
first encountering this author in translation.
The pacing of the novel is uneven. It starts well but then loses momentum midway
when one mystery is solved. The
unraveling of a second mystery seems to take forever. And the ending is just over the top!
I know little about German laws and the judicial system, so
I was confused several times. People
admit to a serious crime but are not arrested?
But then later they are arrested for that crime? Reference is made to a statute of limitations
on crimes but then a suspect is told, “’you will be charged . . . regardless of
what your lawyer here says about the time limit running out.’”
There are some inconsistencies which had me shaking my
head. How can a person plan an escape
that is dependent on errors made by the police?
How can a person be pushed against “an open fire door” and die? It is possible to drive a car through “four
feet of snow”? A plane won’t start
because of snow: “If it starts snowing
any harder the plane might not even start”?
One minute we are told that a character “left the hospital and took off
walking. Nobody tried to stop him” and
then we learn that he was not alone because someone else “hadn’t hesitated a
second to sneak out of the hospital with him”?
Detectives are told something significant and they totally ignore
it? For example, Tobias goes missing but then calls his father
who tells the police where his son is, yet later the detective asks Tobias,
“’Where have you been? . . . We’ve been very worried about you.’” Someone tells the police that a man has
joined his “daddy in heaven” but they don’t investigate? People notice that a phone is in use in an
abandoned building but they don’t check it out and then when they are
confronted by an intruder are shocked:
“As if stunned they both spun around and stared at him in
disbelief.” Some more careful editing
was needed because a character apologizes for losing his temper “this morning”
when the incident happened the previous day.
And this confusion in time happens not once but twice!
The novel certainly tackles passions; jealousy, greed, and
revenge abound. The instinct for
self-preservation leads to so much betrayal.
Unfortunately, I did not have much passion for the book. The author is apparently one of Germany’s
best-loved crime writers, but I found the book implausible and excessive.
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