Babylon Berlin

March 27, 2017
James Ellroy fans will welcome Kutscher’s first novel and series launch, a fast-paced blend of murder and corruption set in 1929 Berlin. Det. Insp. Gereon Rath has been transferred after his role in a controversial fatal shooting to Berlin’s vice squad, a move arranged by his influential father, a legendary police officer, to keep him out of trouble. Against the backdrop of widespread unrest resulting from clashes between the police and Communist demonstrators, Rath gets involved in a murder inquiry after the corpse of an unidentified man is retrieved from the Landwehr canal. The dead man was battered with a hammer, but died from a heroin overdose before he entered the water. The plot thickens when Rath learns that Stalin has sent agents to Berlin to search for a huge trove of gold rumored to be in the city that could be used to fund counterrevolutionary efforts to topple him. Kutscher keeps the surprises coming and doesn’t flinch at making his lead morally compromised.

April 1, 2017
Welcome to Berlin in the 1920s: a city filled with vice, violence, greed, corruption, and political mayhem.Detective Inspector Gereon Rath is forced to leave the Cologne homicide squad after he accidentally kills a man. His well-connected father gets him a job with the Berlin vice squad, led by avuncular DCI Bruno Wolter. A raid on a porn studio almost gets Rath killed but nets vice a new informant, a junkie who will feature in Rath's future cases. Berlin is full of Russians representing every point on the political spectrum, and after vice joins the police action to contain a communist May Day celebration, Rath, who longs to be back in homicide solving real crimes, decries politics to his boss. When an unidentified man is found badly mutilated in a car in a canal, Rath secretly works the case as he pursues his other duties. At the scene is Charly Ritter, law student and stenographer from the homicide division. Her mutual attraction with Rath quickly leads to an affair. Through his investigation of his vice and murder cases, Rath learns of a secret shipment of Russian gold that communists, Nazis, and gangsters are all desperate to find. In a strange twist of fate, Rath accidentally kills another criminal. Determined not to suffer the same fate he did last time, he hides the body and is assigned to find the killer once it is discovered. The life-and-death political battles over the soul of Germany are a major hindrance to Rath's search for solutions to several interconnected crimes. The first in a series that's been wildly popular in Germany is an excellent police procedural that cleverly captures the dark and dangerous period of the Weimer Republic before it slides into the ultimate evil of Nazism.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 1, 2017

The first book in the internationally acclaimed, award-winning series introduces policeman Gereon Rath, who has transferred to the Berlin vice squad after his homicide experience in Cologne ended badly. It is the tempestuous 1920s in Weimar Germany, and there's plenty of vice to investigate. When Gereon uncovers a connection to the murder of a man tortured and dumped in the Landweher Canal, he hopes investigating on his own may lead him closer to a vaunted spot in Homicide and closer to Charlotte (Charly) Ritter, a department stenographer. Gereon's inquiries drag him through the mire of Berlin's underworld and the chaos of the politics of the period. VERDICT Riveting and atmospheric, this historical crime novel is a good choice for readers who appreciate Philip Kerr's "Bernie Gunther" mysteries, Paul Grossman's "Willi Kraus" series, and Rebecca Cantrell's "Hannah Vogel" books.--ACT

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 26, 2018
This graphic novel adaptation of the first entry in Kutscher’s Weimar Berlin–set mystery novel series recalls a period noir, with a patina of cabaret decadence. Although the hero, disgraced homicide detective Gereon Rath, seems to be good at his job, he has another more important attribute: a propensity for getting into trouble. Reassigned to the Berlin vice squad from Cologne after killing a suspect, Gereon has barely gotten off the train when he’s wrapped up in a conspiracy involving a criminal ring of Russian emigrés and a pile of stolen gold that both the Nazis and the Communists want to get their hands on. Soon, Gereon is up to his neck in double-crosses and mysterious murders, not to mention fräuleins willing to tumble into bed. Save for the odd rough translation (some Berliners speak more like Bowery Boys), Jysch’s hard-boiled dialogue has the right level of sardonic bravado for this type of two-fisted tale, and his densely textured backgrounds neatly evoke the jazzy, debauched, and politically fraught environment of 1929 Berlin. This lightning-paced addition to Hard Case Crime’s genre series will garner attention from the recent Netflix premiere of the German television adaptation.