The Pale House

May 26, 2014
In McCallin’s well-executed sequel to 2013’s The Man from Berlin, set mainly in 1945 Sarajevo, Capt. Gregor Reinhardt, a former Berlin police detective, has been transferred to the Feldjaegerkorps, a branch of the German military police that accepts only officers and noncommissioned officers with a minimum of three years of combat experience. Though Reinhardt fears that his membership in the anti-Hitler movement will be uncovered, he can’t resist causing trouble by following his investigations wherever they may lead. At a roadblock set up by the Ustase, the Croatian fascist organization, he confronts a brutal Ustase officer who has been using a spiked club on terrified refugees. Friction between him and the Ustase only complicates Reinhardt’s subsequent probe into the murders of men dressed in German uniforms. Readers who can’t wait for Philip Kerr’s next Bernie Gunther novel will find much to like, even if McCallin falls short of Kerr’s high standard. Agent: Peter Rubie, FinePrint Literary Management.

July 1, 2014
A German officer pursues the deaths of comrades in arms during the fall of Sarajevo in 1945.Capt. Gregor Reinhardt has seen service in both the Great War and World War II. Now, he's being transferred to the elite Feldjaegerkorps, which accepts only decorated soldiers. With his two Iron Crosses, Reinhardt is more than eligible. What makes him less so is his secret membership in a resistance cell, though his hopes of being effective are diminishing daily. En route to a posting in Sarajevo and on the trail of rumored deserters, Reinhardt and his subordinates find three burned bodies of Feldjaeger soldiers and about a dozen massacred civilians. When five more bodies with faces mutilated beyond recognition surface at a military construction site in Sarajevo, Reinhardt, who was a member of the Berlin Kriminalpolizei between the wars, is increasingly convinced that he's looking at a coverup. Drawn into internecine wars of the Yugoslavian Partisans and the Usta]e (a powerful band of terrorists with whom the Nazis have an uneasy alliance), knowing that Nazi forces are planning to abandon the city, realizing that he's been a pawn all his military life but determined to follow the investigation to its end, Reinhardt finds a clue in the missing soldbuchs, or soldier's pay books, that points to corruption. At the center are the Usta]e headquarters in the Pale House and a Nazi penal unit with a growing number of foreign volunteers. Reinhardt's ties to Suzana Vukic, whom he knows from a previous case, lead him to a shadowy figure at the heart of Sarajevo's resistance and to betrayal from all sides. As the city crumbles around him, he has one last chance to follow his own moral compass as he risks his life in a multilayered tale of war, political upheaval and fragile hope.Although McCallin (The Man from Berlin, 2013) thoughtfully provides a cast list, navigating this convoluted wartime mystery is no easy task. The hero and his personal and professional conflicts, however, are well worth the effort.

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