The End of the World in Breslau

February 4, 2013
Krajewski’s bleak second mystery in his Eberhard Mock quartet opens in 1960 New York City, where a dying Mock summons his old friend, Herbert Anwaldt, to hear his confession. Flash back to Breslau, Germany, late 1927. Criminal Counselor Mock investigates the murders of a musician shackled and encased alive inside a brick wall and an unemployed locksmith drawn and quartered in his own apartment. The only link between the two bizarre crimes is a piece of paper with the date pinned on each body. Meanwhile, Mock, a heavy drinker, is unable to impregnate his wife, Sophie, who eventually leaves him and disappears into the decadence of the German spa town of Wiesbaden. The unhappy, melancholic detective spends much of his time obsessing over his lost wife, while attempting to connect the strands of “the calendar murders.” Fans of Simenon’s stand-alone noirs will find much to like.

May 1, 2013
In decadent 1920s Germany, a dutiful but haunted detective unravels a pair of bizarre murders as his personal life crumbles around him. In 1960, as he lies dying ignominiously of lung cancer in New York with a priest standing nearby, Eberhard Mock confesses the story in a flashback to his friend Herbert Anwaldt. On a November Monday in 1927, Criminal Councilor Mock is summoned to a tenement in Breslau, where a shoemaker named Rohmig works. Having knocked down a wall to find the source of a noxious smell, Rohmig has found a corpse, bound and gagged and with a calendar page pinned to his waistcoat. A card found on the body conveniently identifies him as musician Emil Gelfert, 50, and even includes his address. Another victim, unemployed locksmith Berthold Honnefelder, is found butchered in the Tenderloin, in his pocket is a small calendar with a particular date circled. Trapped in a loveless marriage and beset by personal demons, Mock nevertheless probes the case doggedly over the objections of his superiors, following his instinct that the calendar pages are the key to the killer's motive. While his wife, Sophie, carouses with her intimate friend Elisabeth and a debauched baron, Mock acts so recklessly that he nearly bungles his investigation. He drinks heavily; assaults both suspects and Sophie; even assigns detectives to follow her in her escapades. In the second of Mock's five adventures translated into English (Death in Breslau, 2012, etc.), darkly atmospheric writing and complex characters draw the reader into a vividly depicted era of modern history.

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Starred review from March 1, 2013
As winter 1927 sets in, Criminal Counsellor Eberhard Mock, Breslau's most celebrated cop, is under great stress. His beautiful, willful, capricious 24-year-old wife, Sophie, is failing to conceive a child. Fully as willful and self-absorbed as Sophie, the middle-aged cop is drinking prodigiously, buying his wife expensive gifts he can't afford, flying into violent rages, and having Sophie followed. Two bizarre and savage murders, connected only by calendar pages that note the day of each murder, and Sophie's angry flight to Berlin threaten to send Mock off an emotional cliff. Death in Breslau (2012) showcased the city as a roiling kettle of wealth, privilege, poverty, crime, scholarship, and depravity. This time, Krajewski focuses brilliantly on Mock's psychological dissolution, but he also continues to offer fascinating glimpses of the city during a brief period of relative economic stability and sociocultural foment. Eating vast quantities of heavy food preoccupies most of the characters. Spiritualism is represented by a self-described Russian nobleman who lectures on the end of the world and a new messiah, born to a Babylonian whore. Cocaine use is widespread. Fraternal organizations and lodges figure in the tale. Marlene Dietrich is the toast of Berlin, and Breslau has its own Josephine Baker imitator, who performs sans clothes, in black paint. Like Death in Breslau, this one is also bizarre and insightful.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)