Description:

From Publishers Weekly

Set in Germany in the fall of 1932, Grossman's less than stunning debut features Berlin police detective Willi Krauss, who's become a minor celebrity, despite being Jewish, after cracking the notorious Child Eater case. As the Nazis plot to gain control of the country, Krauss looks into the death of a beautiful young woman found floating in the River Spree with her head shaved and her fibulas surgically removed from one leg and replanted in the other. Meanwhile, the Weimar republic's president, Gen. Paul von Hindenberg, orders the policeman to work on another case, the disappearance of a Bulgarian princess. Though the author does a decent job of conveying the atmosphere of fear as Hitler manipulates his way to power, clichéd plot elements, such as a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold love interest for his hero, undercut his efforts at realism. Given the inherent lack of suspense (Krauss's detecting won't prevent the Nazis from succeeding), Grossman doesn't adequately compensate with complex characterizations.
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From

Grossman’s atmospheric debut joins the already bulging list of mysteries set in 1930s Germany. Like Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther, Grossman’s Willi Krauss is a hard-boiled police detective in Berlin who scorns the brownshirts cavorting about his city. But Grossman ups the ante by making Willi a Jew, albeit a famous detective who cracked the sensational Child Eater case and thereby earned himself a degree of immunity from the power-grabbing Nazis. It’s 1932, and Hitler’s noose is tightening when Willi draws another headline-making case: random women, including a Bulgarian princess, have been disappearing from Berlin. The closer Willi comes to cracking the case—the women are all connected to a celebrity hypnotist performing at one of the city’s outré nightclubs—the closer he comes to wearing out his tenuous welcome with the Nazis. Like Kerr, Jonathan Rabb, Craig Nova, and Rebecca Cantrell, Grossman makes the most of the Weimar setting, but his moody thriller breaks little new ground in an already crowded field. Still, for those who can’t get enough of Nazi noir, it delivers the goods. --Bill Ott