Sorry

July 11, 2011
Drvenkar, who was born in Croatia but has lived in Germany since he was three, makes his adult debut in the U.S. with a challenging, insightful thriller. Three Berlin friends in their late 20s, once part of the same high school cliqueâKris Marrer, Tamara Berger, Frauke Lewinâand Kris's two-years younger brother, Wolf, form a company, Sorry, which makes apologies for businesses that have erred in their treatment of employees. Then their paths cross with Lars Meybach, a sadistic killer, who hires them to apologize to his victims, despite their being dead, and clean up after him. Meybach threatens their families if they refuse. Drvenkar (Tell Me What You See and other YA novels) adroitly keeps the reader in the dark as he unravels a horrific story of child sexual abuse, savage revenge, and retribution. A series of shocking, clarifying resolutions clears up the confusion regarding who is a victim and who is a perpetrator.

August 15, 2011

An intricately plotted but thematically belabored German thriller.

The narrative momentum accelerates into a page-turning climax, one that makes it tough to distinguish the good from the bad guys and to keep the shifting identities straight, but the elaborate setup requires a suspension of credibility. The novel introduces four characters who were friends in high school, where they all had ambitious hopes for the future, but each is somewhat adrift a decade later. Kris has just lost his journalist's job, Tamara has relinquished custody of her daughter, Wolf has seen a whirlwind romance turn tragic with his lover's overdose death and Frauke has become estranged from her mother, who is committed to a mental institution. Kris and Wolf are brothers; Tamara and Frauke are best friends. There is also some romantic complication between the men and the women. Fortune strikes after they team to form an agency called Sorry, which—and here's the part that strains credulity—becomes an instant success by offering to make apologies for people who don't want to do it themselves. Some sort of amends—financial or otherwise—occasionally accompany the apologies, and the central conceit allows the author to meditate on the implications of guilt, atonement, redemption and responsibility. There are other characters, including one introduced on the first page as "You," who commits a brutal crime in which the agency becomes involved and just may be responsible.  "You" are morally ambiguous, perhaps the devil incarnate, perhaps an avenging angel, and though you are given a name as the narrative proceeds, it may not be your real name. Whoever you are depends significantly on the identity of a character generally referenced as "The Man Who Wasn't There," who complicates the proceedings in a manner unknown to the agency but increasingly evident to the reader. "You have an agency that apologizes, but there's lots that you can't forgive yourselves," explains the character more often known as "You" to the most reluctant member of the agency's quartet.

Ignore the literary and philosophical pretensions and hang on for the ride.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2011
Twentysomething Kris, his brother, Wolf, and two childhood friends, Tamara and Fauke, are all frustrated, working subpar jobs for very little money. After an evening of raucous conversation and too much wine, the four come up with the idea of going into business together. For the right fee, their agency will officially apologize to wronged parties. Working for both corporations and individuals, the agency becomes so successful that the four can purchase an old villa on a rambling estate. Everything is going perfectly until they take a job that brings them to a crumbling old apartment. Inside, they find the party they are supposed to apologize toa dead woman, nailed to the wall. So starts a horrifying odyssey, a gruesome cat-and-mouse game with the person who hired them. Riffing on the nature of remorse within an elegantly structured and labyrinthine plot, Drvenkar gives his lead characters complicated backstories touching on estrangement, child abuse, and grief. This very clever, very dark read, marred somewhat by a choppy translation, marks Drvenkar as a writer to watch.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)