Death in Breslau

Starred review from July 2, 2012
Set in 1933–1934 Breslau, Germany, this impressive first in Polish writer Krajewski’s quartet featuring Criminal Counsellor Eberhard Mock will please Philip Kerr fans. An emergency call late one night takes Mock from a house of ill repute he frequents to a train car, where the bodies of a 17-year-old girl, a baron’s daughter, and her governess have been found. Live scorpions writhe in the butchered girl’s entrails. The police detective has to proceed carefully in the rapidly shifting political climate, since the Nazis have already purged many of Mock’s colleagues and sent them to concentration camps. Meanwhile, Berlin dispatches another detective to assist with the case, Herbert Anwaldt. The troubled, alcoholic Anwaldt may hold the key to the solution of the horrific murders. This intelligent, atmospheric crime novel, which flashes forward to such events as the 1945 Dresden firebombing and the beginnings of the cold war, possesses a distinctly European, Kafkaesque sensibility.

September 1, 2012

When a prominent baron's daughter and companion are brutally murdered in occult circumstances, Insp. Eberhard Mock of the Breslau police is called in to find the killer--or a suitable scapegoat. It is 1933, and the Gestapo are interested in using the murder to propagate anti-Semitism. Mock finds a suitable "murderer" but secretly reopens the case. Assisted by his alcoholic assistant, Herbert Anwaldt, Mock finds himself immersed in a centuries-old crime with clues in lost manuscripts, a phrase written in blood in an ancient Persian language, and a high-class brothel (with which Mock is well acquainted). VERDICT In the first of four planned volumes, Inspector Mock does not stand out among the characters until after the climax. Despite the lack of a charismatic head detective, this is an intricate crime novel at its best. Readers interested in erotic noir and international crime dramas will find this book enjoyable.--Jennifer Funk, McKendree Univ., Lebanon, IL

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2012
It's 1933, and the Nazis have arrived in Breslau, further roiling the city's already overheated atmosphere of byzantine intrigue, wealth, scholarship, seediness, and pervasive licentiousness. Criminal Counsellor Eberhard Mock has been assigned a new assistant, whom Mock knows is a spy for the Gestapo. Then two women, one the daughter of a powerful Breslau baron, are brutally murdered, with live scorpions wriggling in their wounds. Mock's best clue is a bit of writing in what may be an ancient Semitic language, and he's under the figurative guns of the Nazis, the aggrieved baron (Mock's longtime patron), and the Freemasons. Mock is a compelling protagonist, part Hercule Poirot and part thug, who uses blackmail as a standard investigative tool. He also has a weakness for nubile young Jewish women and chess-playing prostitutes. Krajewski's characterization of the prewar Nazis as a murderous lot who spend most of their time scheming against each other and indulging their various libidinous kinks is intriguing, but what makes this novel a stunner is the detailed portrait of Breslau in the otherworldly, uberdecadent, interwar years. Linguist Krajewski teaches at the University of Wroclaw (nee Breslau) in Poland, and his Mock novels have been critical and popular successes in Europe. U.S. fans of international and historical crime fiction, especially devotees of Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series, will embrace Mock's politically and psychosexually bizarre turf.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)