When an executive at the renowned Ufa film studios is found dead, it falls to Nikolai Hoffner, a chief inspector in the Kriminalpolizei, to investigate. With the help of Fritz Lang and Alby Pimm, Hoffner finds this case taking him into the treacherous underbelly of Berlin.
Read More
When an executive at the renowned Ufa film studios is found dead, it falls to Nikolai Hoffner, a chief inspector in the Kriminalpolizei, to investigate. With the help of Fritz Lang and Alby Pimm, Hoffner finds this case taking him into the treacherous underbelly of Berlin.
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good. Very Good condition. Very Good dust jacket. With remainder mark. A copy that may have a few cosmetic defects. May also contain a few markings such as an owner's name, short gifter's inscription or light stamp.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. Good condition. Very Good dust jacket. A copy that has been read but remains intact. May contain markings such as bookplates, stamps, limited notes and highlighting, or a few light stains.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good + in Very Good- jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 371 pages. There are no marks or writing in the book. Corners are square. Gilt lettering on spine is bright. Spine is tight and there are no loose pages. Dust jacket has light shelf wear. Light stain inside front cover at the top and top edge of back cover. Cover colors are bright.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fine/Fine. Size: 6x1x9; Octavo, 9 1/2" tall, 371 pages, black boards with gilt title on spine. A fine, clean, neat hard cover first edition with light shelf wear; hinges and binding tight, paper white. In a fine dust jacket, with the original price.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fine in Near Fine jacket. Size: 6x1x9; We're happy to combine shipping to save you some money. We're also always buying collectible book collections. Contact us for details. We're happy to provide pictures of any and all books for you, please just ask! American first edition, first printing. Contains numberline 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. Virtually no wear to jacket. Jacket is NOT price clipped. Covers are clean and bright. Edges are sharp. No tears or creases. The book itself is in Near Fine condition. The binding is straight and tight. NO remainder mark.
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-