Berlin 1927: when an executive at the newly-famous Ufa film studios is found dead in his bath, it falls to Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, of the Kriminalpolizei to investigate. With the help of the German film director Fritz Lang and the head of the most powerful crime syndicate, Hoffner finds his case reaches deep into Berlin's sex and drug trade, and into the political world of Hitler's Brownshirts (the SA). Caught up in this story is Hoffner's new lover, and his two sons, one of whom works for Joseph Goebbels. We last ...
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Berlin 1927: when an executive at the newly-famous Ufa film studios is found dead in his bath, it falls to Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, of the Kriminalpolizei to investigate. With the help of the German film director Fritz Lang and the head of the most powerful crime syndicate, Hoffner finds his case reaches deep into Berlin's sex and drug trade, and into the political world of Hitler's Brownshirts (the SA). Caught up in this story is Hoffner's new lover, and his two sons, one of whom works for Joseph Goebbels. We last met Hoffner in Rosa (2007); his relationship with his sons develops menacingly in Shadow and Light.
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Seller's Description:
Good in good dust jacket. Outline: -Berlin between the two world wars. When an executive at the renowned Ufa film studios is found dead floating in his office bathtub it falls to Nikolai Hoffner a chief inspector in the Kriminalpolizei to investigate. With the help of Fritz Lang (the German director) and Alby Pimm (leader of the most powerful crime syndicate in Berlin) Hoffner finds his case taking him beyond the world of film and into the far more treacherous landscape of Berlin`s sex and drug trade the rise of Hitler`s Brownshirts (the SA) and the even more astonishing attempts by onetime monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany. Being swept up in the case are Hoffner`s new lover an American talent agent for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and his two sons: Georg who has dropped out of school to work at Ufa and Sascha his angry older son who unknown to his father has become fully entrenched in the new German Workers Party as the aide to its Berlin leader Joseph Goebbels. What a spellbinding novel Shadow and Light is and what a novelist Jonathan Rabb has become! When we last met Hoffner it was 1919 and he had taken on the disappearance and death of Rosa Luxembourg in Rosa a novel the critic John Leonard hailed as `a ghostly noir that could have been conspired at by Raymond Chandler and André Shadow and Light is equally brilliant and atmospheric and even harder to put down or shake off. Like Joseph Kanon or Alan Furst Rabb magically fuses a smart energetic narrative with layers of fascinating vividly documented history. The result is a stunning historical thriller created by a writer to celebrate-and contend with. -> the publisher of this HARDBACK book is Farrar Straus and Giroux The date of this copy is 2009 booksalvation have grade it as Good and it will be shipped from our UK warehouse This book is from the Series. Shipping is Free for UK buyers and at a reasonable charge for buyer outside the UK.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Simply Brit – welcome to our online used book store, where affordability meets great quality. Dive into a world of captivating reads without breaking the bank. We take pride in offering a wide selection of used books, from classics to hidden gems, ensuring there's something for every literary palate. All orders are shipped within 24 hours and our lightning fast-delivery within 48 hours coupled with our prompt customer service ensures a smooth journey from ordering to delivery. Discover the joy of reading with us, your trusted source for affordable books that do not compromise on quality.
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Seller's Description:
Fair. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear. It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear. It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket.
Berlin in 1927 fascinates. The detective does not.
Jonathan Rabb's new novel, SHADOW AND LIGHT, is far from without merits. But unity and coherence are not among them. Since this is the second appearance of Rabb's Berlin police officer 53-year old Nikolai Hoffner, it is fair to judge SHADOW AND LIGHT primarily as a detective yarn. But detection and suspense are its weakest elements. Over a five day period in March 1927 Chief Inspector Hoffner, a hard-drinking, heavy smoking 53-year old widower, moves rapidly from one easy clue to another until he uncovers a huge variety of forces at work that created the corpse he investigated in a corporate bathtub of the giant film studio UFA. Despite forces controlling vast resources of personnel and money at work to stop him, Hoffner succeeds. True he draws upon the resources of two or three gangster friends of his. And no one has a clue where all this is leading at the start, but succeed he does. Between clues five and ten with ten or twelve more to come, it was clear to me that nothing would stop him. Hence: low marks as detective thriller.
It is another matter with Rabb's large dollops of genuine, accurate history of Berlin in 1926-27. Yes, there were Nazis and Dr. Josef Goebbels was unleashing them against communists and Jews. Yes, there were conservatives and rich media men plotting to rearm Weimar Germany despite the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. Yes, Germany was wildly innovative in producing black and white silent films and with their October 1928 THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL Germans had beaten (without getting credit) Los Angeles in the race for the technology to launch "talkies," starting with Al Jolson in THE JAZZ SINGER. And finally, yes, Berlin was a dark, evil, creative, horrible, fascinating city six years before Hitler came to power in 1933. All these elements author Rabb laboriously weaves together into one plot.
It is too much. G. K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and other founders of the 1928 London Detection Club were right: the best detective story is a short story. It is a puzzle, not easy to unravel. You are free to build a novel around it, but you do so at your peril. So why did Jonathan Rabb write SHADOW AND LIGHT? My guess is that he wants to teach German history and Berlin history to people who would not otherwise give a hang about it. And to do so he embeds truly fetching, important real history in a detective story. In my opinion, he does not bring it off. But then I incline more to detective stories by Conan Doyle and Ronald Knox. -OOO-
