Volker Kutscher Books

July 1932. When a drowned man is found in a freight elevator in Haus Vaterland, the giant pleasure palace on Potsdamer Platz, Inspector Gereon Rath is called in to investigate. It's not that Rath hasn't problems enough. His hunt for a mysterious contract killer has been stalled for weeks, and his on-off lover, Charlotte Ritter, has just begun her probationary year with Berlin CID. The corpse in Haus Vaterland looks to be part of a series of murders whose trail leads eastwards to the Polish border - and beyond.

Berlin, 1931. A power struggle is taking place in Berlin's underworld. The American gangster Abraham Goldstein is in residence at the Hotel Excelsior. As a favour to the FBI, the police put him under surveillance with Detective Gereon Rath on the job. As Rath grows bored and takes on a private case for his seedy pal Johann Marlow, he soon finds himself in the middle of a Berlin street war. Meanwhile Rath's on-off girlfriend, Charly, lets a young woman she is interrogating escape, and soon her investigations cross Rath's from the other side. Berlin is a divided city where two worlds are about to collide: the world of the American gangster and the expanding world of Nazism

1933: A homeless veteran is found dead under railway arches in Berlin; apparently killed by an army dagger. Gereon Rath is brought onto the case just as the Reichstag mysteriously burns down. Unsettled by the Nazis' tightening grip; he and Charlotte Ritter must also contend with their political colleagues. The new Germany is frightening; but police work must go on even among book-burning and marching; rising paranoia and fear.

March 1930: Silent movie actress Betty Winter is killed on set after a lighting system falls on her. Talkies are destroying the careers of producers, cinema owners and stars in a world that is already bubbling with studio wars and sexual politics. Inspector Gereon Rath suspects sabotage, possibly worse. Meanwhile, the murder of a Nazi named Horst Wessel leads to street riots and Rath's relationship with Charlotte Ritter is on the rocks. Then another actress is found dead, this time with her vocal cords removed

This historical mystery set in Berlin, 1929, is the first of a popular series in Germany. Detective Inspector Rath was a successful career officer in the Cologne Homicide Division before a shooting incident in which he inadvertently killed a man. He was transferred to the Vice Squad in Berlin, a job he now detests, even though he finds a new friend in his boss, Chief Inspector Wolter. There is seething unrest in the city and the Commissioner of Police has ordered the Vice Squad to ruthlessly enforce the ban on May Day demonstrations. The result is catastrophic with many dead and injured, and a state of emergency is declared in the Communist strongholds of the city.