"There the monster lies..." Master of the Day of Judgment, by Leo Perutz

9781559703345
Arcade Publishing, 1975
originally published as Der Meister des Jüngsten Tages, 1921
translation by Eric Mosbacher
154 pp
paperback



"Human vileness remains, and that's the most lethal of all lethal weapons."


I am a bit hesitant in terms of posting  about this book as a crime novel -- it actually sort of defies genre when all is said and done, moving into its own literary territory.  While there are a number of mysteries to be found here,  the author has something quite different in mind as the central focus of this story.   Master of the Day of Judgment is most brilliantly constructed, so much so that as that last page is turned,  you may more than likely find your sense of what is real and what is not being thrown completely off kilter, causing you to go back to the beginning and to read it through a second time.  And when you've finished it that second time, the nature of the title comes into focus more clearly as it dawns on you what the author meant here.

It is at the beginning, the "Foreword instead of a Postscript" that we are introduced to our narrator.  Gottfried Adalbert Baron von Yosch explains that he has just finished chronicling the "whole sequence of tragic events" which had occurred over a certain five-day period in September, 1909, "everything that I wanted to forget and cannot."   He makes a point of revealing that as he wrote, his memory had "distinctly and vividly preserved a mass of detail"  including "trivial" bits of conversation, what was going through his mind at the time, and "minor events of the day." He especially remembers what arrived in the mail on 26 September, a day that "stands out clearly" in his mind for reasons we don't yet know, including  things he did the rest of the day, what was in the newspapers, etc.;  everything is so minutely described so that there should not even the slightest hint of doubt that he is trustworthy in the account that is about to unfold.   However,  there's a bit of a hiccup in that vivid memory of his, as he notes that he thought that things had occurred over a period of "several weeks" and then later, he finds himself thinking that it was "inexplicable" that he has moved one particular event to mid October.   Cue red flag, raised eyebrow. 

One of the Baron's remembrances of September 26th is a "brief item in small type" about the failure of a bank; while he'd been able to get his money out in time, he realizes that he might have warned his acquaintance actor Eugen Bischoff that he should do the same, but had instead kept silent.  He offers his reasons for keeping mum, adding "Why meddle in other people's affairs?" but again the eyebrow is raised wondering what there is between these two men that caused him not to offer a friendly word of advice.  At this point, in my mind, Baron von Yosch himself has become the first mystery to be solved here, but then he slowly begins to shift the focus away from himself by offering a prelude as to what is about to be unfolded about the "sinister and tragic" five days that began on the 26th.  It seems that he and others ("we"),  found themselves involved in

 "the pursuit of of an invisible enemy who was not of flesh and blood but a fearsome ghost from past centuries"

by following a "trail of blood" leading to the opening of a "gateway to the past."  Even more cryptically, he mentions "the book," and  "that fearful trumpet red" which he hopes that "no human being ever again set eyes on." 

1930 first American edition, from Abe Books

From there, the Baron's account launches into the start of those sinister events, beginning with  a small friendly musical concert among friends at the home of Eugen Bischoff,  and ending in the actor's death.  [Just as an aside, this technically isn't a spoiler since it's in the blurb on the back cover of the novel.]     The Baron is invited to play his violin there by a mutual friend of both, Dr. Eduard Ritter von Gorski, who mentions that Bischoff has no idea that the bank has gone under and that he's lost everything, and no one is telling him about it because Bischoff has enough on his plate at the moment without knowing of his financial ruin.  But once there among his friends Bischoff, his wife Dina, her brother Felix and a newcomer named Solgrub, the Baron casually asks Bischoff if he's seen the morning paper, which he knew they'd hidden from him, drawing disgust from the others at the gathering.   A bit later, Bischoff leaves their company; the Baron goes out for a walk in the garden where he meets up with Dina on his way back, and as they're talking,  the entire household hears Bischoff scream the Baron's name.  As they're wondering what's happening, the sound of two gunshots follows immediately afterward; von Yosch leaves Dina and makes his way to the garden pavilion where he discovers that Bischoff has been shot.  By now, everyone except Dina has arrived, in time to see the dying man throw the Baron a "grimace of blazing hatred."    Suspicion immediately falls on the Baron due to a "silent witness" found at the scene; although clearly a suicide,  Felix speculates that Yosch drove him to it, a feeling shared by everyone present except the newcomer Solgrub, who believes the Baron's claims of innocence in the matter and his oath made on his honor.  He realizes that  Bischoff's suicide makes no sense and that there is something seriously wrong here; he reasons that if he can come to understand exactly why the actor took his own life, then he may be able to prove that the Baron was not behind it and sets out to investigate.  The trouble is that the Baron doesn't have much time since Felix holds the threat of exposure over his head, so he decides to do some investigating on his own.

All of the above is just the beginning of  more yet to come that will move this story from the mystery behind Bischoff's suicide  into another realm entirely, as the Baron's narrative reveals how it is that the players move onto that "trail of blood" to find the "gateway to the past" alluded to earlier.   As the story begins to shift yet again, it becomes obvious that  Perutz hasn't quite finished with his readers -- there are even more surprises to come.

Reading this book as a conventional mystery story just isn't right.   Master of the Day of Judgment  also appears on Karl Edward Wagner's list of thirteen best non-supernatural horror novels, but it's not exactly horror story either.  In fact, I'm finding it a bit difficult to attach a genre label to it since, as the blurb notes, it blends "suspense and the fantastic," but in the long run becomes something completely different.   It's one of those book that tends to mess with your head and delightedly so; I love challenging, reality-questioning novels like this one. Not for everyone, for sure, but I had a great time with this story.   Then again, I also loved Perutz's Saint Peter's Snow (which is even more hallucinatory and mind-boggling than this one) so I'm not surprised.    

*Detective Muller: Imperial Austrian Police, Volumes 1 and 2, by Augusta Groner

In the early 1890s, a woman in Austria who had only started writing crime in her 40s introduced a new detective, Detective Joseph Müller, a very different sort of sleuth than his British contemporary Sherlock Holmes.   His first case, "The Golden Bullet," revealed that Müller is a policeman with a heart; a man who, if he sees something worth salvaging in a criminal, he is likely to "warn his prey, once he has all proofs of the guilt and a conviction is certain"  ("The Golden Bullet", Vol. 2, 305).  His superiors despair; they know he is an excellent detective, who is "without a peer in his profession," but his "weakness" doesn't sit well with police authorities.  Strangely enough though, his talents are so valued by the very institution that won't take him on full time that they often hire him privately when a "particularly difficult case" arises.  Luckily for Müller, this very last case in his "public career" left him a man of means, because his boss had to let him go; he becomes, as the back-blurb reveals, "a member of that secret and shadowy organisation," the secret police.

It is incredibly difficult to find out much about Auguste Groner (1850-1929), which is strange, as a) she has been labeled, as Leslie Klinger tells us in his In the Shadow of Agatha Christie (2018), the "mother" of Austrian crime writing,   and b) her Müller stories remained popular for about 30 years. Even the review of Klinger's book at Open Letters Review neglects to mention her, while instead focusing on Australian and British women authors.  I went though my own collection of nonfiction books about crime writing including Barzun and Taylor, Haycraft, and even Lucy Sussex's Women Writers and Detectives in Nineteenth-Century Crime Fiction: The Mothers of the Mystery Genre, and there is nothing written about this woman.  The only time she's even mentioned in any of my books is a brief bit in a paragraph by Stephen Knight in his Crime Fiction Since 1800: Detection, Death, Diversity (2010) where he lists Groner's name (here Grüner) among contemporaries of writer Carolyn Wells, "who are now quite forgotten." (82)  Internet searching brings up little, so we just kind have to roll with what we've got, which is not much.

9780857062833

Leonaur, 2010

331 pp

paperback

Volume 1 of this "special two-volume collection" (so named by the publishers), introduces Müller before launching into four of his cases: "The Man With the Black Cord," which is actually novel length; "The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow," "The Case of the Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study," and "The Case of the Registered Letter."  My pick for favorite in this lot is the first story, as it involves the disappearance of an elderly man right out of his own bedroom, a truly-impossible situation; an old house, an inheritance, a strange neighbor, and of course, it is a great introduction to the detective, who, as we learn here knows exactly when and what to say to a villain that "gave him his power to touch the heart of even the most abandoned criminal."  We also see him at work, learning how he plies his craft -- including using a disguise, hiring a would-be prisoner as an assistant, and lots of foot time.   My least favorite story was "The Case of the Registered Letter," but the others are challenging little puzzles that left me scratching my head, wondering how the heck our erstwhile detective was going to figure them out.

9780857062864

Leonaur, 2010

326 pp

hardcover

Volume two offers three stories: "The Lamp That Went Out", "Mene Tekel: A Tale of Strange Happenings," and ironically, the last story is actually the author's first Müller tale,  "The Golden Bullet."    The first story involves the death of a stranger, found in an area of Vienna "known to be one of the safest spots" in the city.  "The Golden Bullet" is a locked-room/impossible crime mystery, in which the murder of a prominent man drives Müller to appeal to the criminal in a most unusual way, one with which his superiors do not appreciate.   My favorite in this volume is the second story, "Mene Tekel: A Tale of Strange Happenings," which actually reminded me much more of an old, pulpy adventure tale leaning a bit on the edge of sci-fi.  Here, Müller is called upon to watch over a Scandinavian scientist (without him knowing, of course), as he sets out on a journey to test his newest invention.  This story will take the reader from England to the ruins of Babylon before it's all over, with plenty of surprises all around.  Where all of the other stories in both volumes fall more along the traditional lines of whodunits, this one requires some suspension of disbelief, and it would certainly not be out of place in an anthology of archaeological adventure-pulp fiction.  I have a deep and abiding fondness for that very thing, so this story was right up my reading alley.   Other readers may not be as happy with  it as I was, because in more than one way it roams headlong into the valley of sheer farfetchedness (I know that's not a word, but it works), but its difference from every other story in this collection (and my keen love of the strange) was the biggest draw here.


Some of Groner's Müller tales are available online and in e-reader crime collections here and there on Amazon, but as someone who prefers the feel of book in hand, I'm grateful to Leonaur for publishing  this two-volume collection of her work.   I'll look forward to hopefully finding more of her work translated into English -- Auguste Groner is sadly neglected by modern crime readers, which is an absolute shame. 

recommended for readers who enjoy discovering the work of forgotten female writers, as well as people who enjoy early detective stories that feature a different sort of sleuth.  I personally thought these books were wonderful.

another winner from Pushkin Vertigo: I Was Jack Mortimer, by Alexander Lernet-Holenia

9781782271154
Pushkin Vertigo, 2015
originally published as Ich war Jack Mortimer, 1933
translated by Ignat Avsey
186 pp

paperback

"This man had messed up everything with his death." 

Ferdinand Sponer is a taxi driver in Vienna, "about thirty," whose only mistake was to pick up the wrong passenger.  Waiting in the taxi rank at the Westbahnhof, his turn comes up, and his passenger directs him to the Hotel Bristol.  After some time, he realizes that there are two Hotel Bristols, so he opens up the partition between front and back seat, and asks his passenger which one.  Receiving no answer, he asks again, and is met only with silence.  Sponer turns on the light inside the cab, looks at the man in the back seat, and realizes that "the man was dead." To his further surprise, since he hadn't heard anything at all, he discovers that the guy had been shot right there in his seat.  Sponer tries to tell the police, but panics -- after reporting a fake accident and unable to think straight,  he goes through what I can only describe as a serious lack of judgment, and then makes a fateful decision that will make his life a living hell over the course of the next couple of days.  Believing that if his passenger fails to show up at the hotel that the game would be up and he would be blamed, he decides Jack Mortimer will keep his reservation at the Hotel Bristol, just for one night.  Afterwards, Sponer figures, he can get on with his old life without anyone ever finding out what had happened. But, as we all know, the best laid plans and all that ...

I've seen this labeled as a thriller, and I suppose there are a number of thriller-type elements, but I got more of a noir sort of flavor from it -- the hapless Joe who's in the wrong place at the wrong time, looking for a way out of his predicament only to discover that he just may be trapped by his own choices.  The suspense picks up once Sponer decides that he will become Jack Mortimer, and as we discover exactly who Jack Mortimer actually was,  all manner of things happen that send Ferdinand's life spiraling out of control.  But, as we're told,

"One doesn't step into anyone's life, not even a dead man's, without having to live it to the end,"

and with our poor taxi driver, that just might be the case as he finds himself smack in the middle of a collision course between the past and the present.

from Quixotando

I watched the film (1935, German with English subtitles) this morning, and while not as suspenseful as the book, the movie itself is pretty good.  It starts pretty slowly, introducing the main players, and instead of letting the tension build in discovering the past history of Jack Mortimer we get that whole shebang near the beginning. It takes the actual discovery of the dead man in the back seat of the taxi to get things rolling, but from then on, it's one of those movies where you don't want to miss a second.  A few noticeably surreal scenes at times make it stand out, as does the main character spiraling into panic mode when he realizes that absolutely no one is going to believe that he has nothing to do with his passenger's death.

Both book and movie are definite yesses.  Alongside the main story in the novel, by virtue of Sponer's job as taxi driver, we are privy to the sights, sounds and smells of interwar Vienna as he travels through the city; class distinctions are also nicely detailed here.  As a character study, it also works quite nicely -- again, my focus in reading is on people, looking for what drives them to do what they do, and I was not at all disappointed.  Evidently, though, my high opinion of this novel isn't shared by a lot of readers, who in general give it an average overall rating mainly because of the plot.  Well, this book is a prime example of what you miss when plot and "story arc" are the only things you care about.  Trust me, there's nothing average about this book at all -- it's another fine example of an old book that has been largely forgotten, and thanks to Pushkin Vertigo, it's now widely available.  Once again I'll say that I do understand that crime from 1930s may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I seem to be encountering a lot of these old novels that are really, really good and which definitely ought to be part of every serious crime fiction reader's repertoire.

Recommended to all crime readers, but most especially to readers who love these old books as much as I do.

and another badass mommy hits the streets. Sigh. Woman of the Dead, by Bernhard Aichner

9781476775616
Scribner, 2015
279 pp

hardcover

 The main character of this novel is truly one of a kind -- a young woman, happily married to a cop with two little daughters, who has a unique occupation: she's an undertaker, running the family business after the death of her parents some eight years prior to when this story begins.  But the fact that she's comfortable around dead people isn't what makes her stand out.

Blum is married to the love of her life, Mark and all is perfect in her world until one day her husband is killed in a hit-and-run accident. When she's finally able to start to pull herself together, she takes on the task of cleaning out Mark's stuff.  It's then that she runs across a series of conversations between Mark and a woman -- all professional, no hanky-panky -- but Blum's curiosity gets the better of her and she listens.  As the conversations get darker and more serious, she is convinced that the investigation  Mark was running had a major connection to his death.  She does what any normal person would do and runs to the police with her information, speaking with Mark's friend and trusted colleague, who assures her that the woman in the recordings is nothing but a liar. In short, he says there was nothing to any of this, and she should forget about it and go on with her life.  But Blum isn't convinced -- there's something about this mystery woman that catches her attention, and, of course, if this all has something to do with Mark's death, she wants to know. Eventually, she begins to realize that Mark was into something really ugly and really deep, and that his death was more likely a murder to keep him from getting too close to the truth.   So she decides to look into things herself, and ends up setting herself on a course of revenge.

When it comes down to it, this story has all of the elements of a typical badass heroine thriller, with a dark, actually psychotic twist involving her past that helps her do what she does once she has revenge in mind. But I do have to say that this book didn't set my heart racing as I think it was intended to do.    First of all, I figured out the BIG reveal quite early on so finishing this novel became a game of waiting to prove myself right.  Let's just say that guessing the who and the why has happened to me before, but when it happens so very early in the story, it actually wrecks things for me beyond repair.  And absolutely nothing after that point in this book made me question myself whatsoever.  Way too easy --  I think when someone is writing a crime novel, considering that his or her audience is probably full of seasoned crime-reading veterans, there should be the added bonus of an actual mystery going on.  Second, there is so much violence here that for me, at least, it was not at all a pleasure to read.  But those are minor issues compared to my third, which is that everything happens and falls into place so unrealistically easily that there was no challenge whatsoever in the reading.  I mean, seriously -- if you're going to write a thriller, shouldn't it be thrilling? Whoever wrote the dustjacket blurb saying this book is "Vivid, tense, and written with breakneck narration" probably needs to go back and read it again -- I didn't see any of this in here.

I feel absolutely awful when I don't like a book that I know someone has put so much effort into but I can't help it in this case.  On the other hand, a huge number of readers gave this book high marks and enthusiastic praise, so anyone considering this book should probably decide about it on his or her own. As for me, I'm just so done with badass mommies in a big way.

Five, by Ursula Archer

9781250037411
Macmillan/Minotaur, 2014
originally published as Funf, 2012
translated by Jamie Lee Searle
336 p

advanced reader copy 

My thanks and my apologies to the publisher who sent me this a long time ago.  I must say, there's nothing like taking over a year to read an advance reader copy -- I'm so embarrassed I could crawl under my desk right now.  I shelved it, forgot about it, and well, there it is. 

I was intrigued by the premise of this novel, which is that the discovery of a woman's body at the bottom of a rock face turns into a bizarre case involving geocaching, one that keeps the detectives of the Salzburg State Office of Criminal Investigation on the move while trying to decipher strange clues at different gps locations.  The dead woman provides the first clue; she has what turns out to be gps coordinates tattooed on the bottoms of her feet.  When the police arrive at the specified location, they make a gruesome find -- inside of a food container they discover a hand that looks to have been cut off of its owner with a saw.  Also in the container is a cryptic message about the next potential victim -- first name only, description, and a numerical puzzle they must solve to figure out the next coordinates.  It's like a macabre sort of treasure hunt where the only possible reward is finding the connection between the victims which will hopefully lead to the killer's capture, but of course in crime fiction, it's never that simple.  

The geocaching element of this novel  I liked, something I appreciated in terms of making this book a bit different than a lot of other serial killer novels.  When all is said and done, using gps coordinates to lead the detectives on their hunt is a pretty good idea, and there's also a nice twist involved in the resolution of the story that I failed to see coming, which I also appreciate.  The novel also focuses on the "what-ifs" in different characters' lives, more than one of which has a huge bearing on the outcome of the story.   

So, I knew that this was what I call a "gimmicky serial killer" book when I started reading it, and I picked it up just to have something that I didn't need to put much work into. It was sort of a sandwich filling kind of entertainment read for me, coming between some pretty hefty novels where I needed to pay serious attention to what was going on, and I grabbed it needing a brain break.  What I didn't know going into it is that it's also another angsty cop novel -- the lead detective, Beatrice Kaspary is mom to two kids, divorced, and has to offload her kids quite often because of the huge amounts of time she spends as a dedicated detective.   She is also at odds with her ex-husband, who never wanted a divorce and calls constantly around the clock  to complain about how her job interferes with taking care of their children and other things.  My psychic powers sense much domestic drama in coming installments.  What's really missing for me here is setting -- seriously, if I didn't know this book came from Austria, it could have been situated anywhere, and that was sort of disappointing.  Sigh.

All in all, adding the geocaching element was a good, original touch, one that kept me reading.  Aside from that, however, in the long run, I feel like I ended up with yet another serial killer/domestic drama sort of thriller that sadly (imo) seems  to be defining much of the genre these days.  I suppose it's what sells and it's what a lot of people want to read these days, so it is what it is.  For my own relax purposes, it sufficed. There are some gruesome descriptions, but thankfully, they're sort of after the fact and the author doesn't feel the need to dwell on the horrific details of exactly how things happened. That's a plus in my book, as is the  actual core mystery behind the killer's motivations,  which I thought was a pretty good one, although I wasn't a huge fan of the actual ending.   Readers who are much more into thrillers than I am will probably enjoy it; it's dark but not too dark, and I would say it comes closer to the police procedural end of crime than any other subgenre.

from Austria by way of Melville House: Resurrection, by Wolf Haas

9781612192703
Melville House, 2014
180 pp
originally published as Auferstehung der Toten, 1996
translated by Annie Janusch

paperback

Wolf Haas has written seven novels in his Simon Brenner series; Resurrection is the first novel. Haas  has a different but cool, quirky sort of  writing style not often found in standard crime/mystery fare, with a story that has a number of  meandering but often humorous  digressions that hide a rather ingenious crime and the keys to its solution.  It is also the introduction to an ex-policeman turned PI who is  all too human but who sticks with his work until it's finished, despite his own personal shortcomings. And because it suits my need for trying to stay out of the mundane in my reading, I had a great time with this book.

Simon Brenner is a 44 year-old ex-detective inspector ("or whatever his rank was") who has recently left the police after a nineteen-year career.  He's on the same case he was working when he left, the strange affair of two elderly Americans found frozen to death in December on a chair lift in Zell am See, a popular ski area in the Austrian Alps. The Americans were factory owners in Detroit, and inlaws of Vergolder Antretter, the "richest man in Zell." As the reader learns in the first two chapters, Brenner solved the case only after three-quarters of the year had gone by, not for the police, but for Vienna's Meierling Detective Agency, contracted by the Americans' insurance company.  The police case had stalled in January; by March, as a PI for Meierling, Brenner was back.  Suffering from pounding migraines, he works his way through this case with no evidence or leads; all he has is a seemingly unshakable alibi of one of the suspects given by a man who's just been released from a mental hospital. Using the alibi as a first step, Brenner ends up being awed by a woman with thick bifocals who gives him a ride in a car despite the fact that she has no hands, is sent to and falls in lust with a gorgeous schoolteacher who may have some important information for him, butts heads with an ambitious but annoying local reporter,  and even comes up against his former boss again before the nine months go by and the case finally comes to a close.

Zell am See, courtesy of purpletravel.co.uk

So far, this may seem like a typical outing in the world of crime fiction, but it most definitely is not. If the author were to go straight from point A to point B with the case, the investigation and the solution,  a) there would certainly be less pages in this book and b) it wouldn't be nearly as interesting or fun.  The unique narration style strikes the reader immediately.  It's as if he/she is being addressed by a sardonic someone who's sitting around in a bar, looking back and telling the story, complete with comments to "you," and the normal digressions a storyteller might make in such a situation, complete with character observations.  As just one example of a meandering path in this book, in describing how Brenner took a taxi ride hoping for information from a talkative cabbie, the narrator turns that into a discourse on the sport of curling, rich tourists and poor tipping,  as well as the way Brenner eats a sausage on a bun.  Yet hidden among this often darkly humorous, tangential material are not only clues essential to solving the crime, but there is a lot of insight into Brenner's character, the issues faced by the permanent residents in this tourist mecca, and the ugly past of this otherwise outwardly postcard-perfect area.

Since I've already read the author's Brenner and God, it's pretty obvious that in this book he's just getting started on developing Brenner's character, but that's usually the case in a first series novel. The crime, once solved, proves to be cleverly plotted and I didn't guess the who or the why.  I also happened to enjoy the quirkiness of Haas' writing style, but I can see how it might not be everyone's cup of tea.  The story digresses and the meandering may be a little off-putting for a reader who's in this solely for the crime. However, for patient readers who are willing to take a chance on something very different in the crime-fiction zone, while it takes some initial bit of getting used to,  Resurrection turns out to be a very good and quite satisfying read, punctuated here and there with bits of dark humor keeping it lively.

crime fiction from Austria

Brenner and God, by Wolf Haas

9781612191133
Melville House, 2012
215 pp
originally published as Brenner und der liebe Gott, 2009
translated by Annie Janusch

softcover

Talk about finding yourself in deep doodoo!

Ex-cop Simon Brenner, at a time when others at his age are starting to think about their pensions, has finally found a profession he actually likes and someone who "understands him better that most adults he's had anything to do with in his life."  Brenner works as a driver for the Kressdorfs, the parents of two year-old Helena, with whom he can discuss his problems and worries while he's driving her out on the Autobahn. It's a great arrangement, and according to the omniscient narrator who is telling the story, the two are "like-minded  souls," with a "kindred connection between them."  Helena's mom is a doctor who among other things in her practice performs abortions; her dad is known as "the lion of construction."   The parents are super happy with Brenner, especially because he is an ex-cop, and he is generally careful to make everything perfect prior to each trip of many hours on the Autobahn with Helena.  Despite his meticulous preparations before each trip, on the day the novel begins, he realizes he has forgotten to put gas in the car (likely due to the calming pills he takes since his last girlfriend moved out) and makes a stop.  After fueling, he moves the car over to one side to keep Helena (still in her car seat) away from the fumes while Brenner goes inside alone to pay, promising her an otherwise verboten chocolate bar when he comes back.   He also takes a minute to grab an espresso, and on his return to the car,  he discovers that Helena's not there. He stands there clicking the door locks open with the key fob to no avail (Helena's still not there); he goes into the gas station to ask about surveillance footage but he'd parked the BMW away from any of the cameras.    Instead of calling the police (maybe owing to the drugs or just plain shock), he waits -- and it's not long,  of course, until Brenner becomes the prime suspect and also (needless to say)  becomes unemployed.  Brenner decides that he will have to be the one to take on the case of the missing Helena; as he begins to look for potential suspects he  stumbles into some of the  Kressdorf's most carefully-guarded secrets as well as those of their associates and enemies, the whole lot offering up possible motives and possible kidnappers.  But there are people who don't want these secrets to be revealed at any cost and when Brenner starts getting too close  he finds himself literally in the shit.

What sets Brenner and God apart from just becoming another crime fiction novel is that unlike other crime fiction narratives, (with the possible exception of the previous six in the series**) there is an all-seeing, all-knowing narrator who not only gives the reader hints as to what may be coming down the pike for our erstwhile hero, but also warns the reader about mistakes people are going to make in just a matter of seconds, and even offers up some pretty funny and sometimes spot-on philosophical moments as the crime plot moves forward.  As an example, here the narrator is in the midst of adding an element of an important secret to the plot, then takes time out to discuss the nature of secret keeping, why he likes Brenner so much, and then makes a decision that the reader is trustworthy to hear it as well.    Brenner has just been asked if he can keep a secret and not let it get back to the police:

  " 'No problem. No one will hear anything from me.'

He would've liked to have said that with a little more conviction, but personally I think a dry promise isn't the worst, because how do you prove to someone that you won't tell someone else? It basically only applies to your best friend anyway, who'll probably tell his wife the very same evening, who'll solemnly swear not to tell anybody else, and her best friend will have to swear the same thing half an hour later.  The more adamantly a person vows to keep a lid on it, the more certain you can be that, come tomorrow, the entire world will know.  And you see, Brenner said it just that dryly, and he's probably the first person in the world who's never actually spoken a dying word of it to anybody.  These are the things I like about Brenner.  But since it's just us, I'll make an exception and tell  you what the doctor said."

I actually calculated that without these narrative moments which run all through the novel and which often include the phrase “my dear Swan,” the actual crime story per se  would take up very little space in the book.  Normally I would cry foul and complain about the fluff padding the author's doing, but not in this case.  Personally, I liked the way Haas set up the narration of this story (and I LOVED Brenner) although I do have to admit that by the end of the book  the wiggy style was beginning to grate and I was starting to need a respite.  In deciding whether or not to read this novel you might want to consider the following:  if you're more into the crime and less into style, you might want to pass because of all of the meandering asides that can be rather intrusive at times slowing down movement toward resolution.  On the other hand,  if you can just relax with the author's style and try to enjoy the humor knowing that the entire book is going to be like this in and around the crime narrative, well I think you'll find it quite funny, very well done.  I will definitely be wanting to pick up the next Melville House Brenner release The Bone Man, which I just noticed if you pre-order you get it 30 days earlier than the general release date. I do hope Melville House will plan a run of the entire series -- starting with book number seven kind of leaves readers at a loss wondering about what other kinds of messes Simon Brenner has found himself in in the past.

crime fiction from Austria

• **Brenner detective stories (adapted from wikipedia)
  • Auferstehung der Toten 1996, ISBN 3-499-22831-9
  • Der Knochenmann 1997, ISBN 3-499-22832-7 (Translated as The Bone Man, Melville House, 2013, ISBN 978-1-61219-169-0)
  • Komm, süßer Tod  1998, ISBN 3-499-22814-9
  • Silentium!  1999, ISBN 3-499-22830-0
  • Wie die Tiere (Vienna), 2001, ISBN 3-499-23331-2
  • Das ewige Leben  2003, ISBN 3-492-24095-X

Paulus Hochgatterer x 2: The Sweetness of Life and The Mattress House

In both The Sweetness of Life and The Mattress House, crime takes a back seat to psychology; no surprise there if you consider that the author of both of these novels is a  child psychiatrist.  It should also come as no surprise that children feature heavily in these books, as does a shrink who specializes in pediatric psychology. While there are some pretty gruesome crimes in both novels, the author takes a roundabout way to their solutions while revealing  psychological portraits of not just victims or perpetrators, but of several denizens of the town of Furth am See, the fictional setting  in Austria in which the two main characters live and work.  Psychiatrist Raffael Horn is constantly questioning himself, as is Criminal Commissioner Ludwig Kovacs, while they both try to understand what makes people in the town do what they do.  While most novels of crime fiction afford the reader a glimpse here and there into the private lives of the good guys and often get into the psychology behind criminal actions, Hochgatterer does something different with these novels. Whereas most crime fiction stories focus on the crime and its solution, he starts out with a crime, starts the investigation rolling, and then intersperses both of these aspects throughout several chapters that center on the people involved directly, peripherally, and sometimes to throw you off the trail, not at all -- in the long run, it's really the reader's job to sort it all out.   This is not to say that the crimes he dreams up aren't heinous or that there's a lot of needless psychobabble between the covers of these books; what Hochgatter delivers is just a different variation of what most readers are used to in terms of crime fiction.  I'm not sure yet if this rather unorthodox  approach works for me or not as a crime reader, but it is different, and worth looking into as a reader in general.  It also makes me wonder if it isn't time to start looking at crime fiction in a new way.

******

9781847247711
MacLehose Press, 2012 (UK)
originally published as Die Süiße des Lebens, 2006
translated by Jamie Bulloch
248 pp
(trade paper ed)

The Sweetness of Life has one of the most eerie beginnings I've read in a long time. A little girl and her grandfather are in his home, playing Ludo (an American equivalent would be the game Sorry) while the snow falls outside in the night.  A knock comes on the door, the grandfather opens it, and steps outside. Thinking she'd play a trick on her grandfather when he came back, she takes two pieces off of their squares.  But the grandfather doesn't return, and the little girl goes outside to see what's going on. Eventually she makes her way to the barn, where she makes a horrifying discovery: the grandfather is laying dead in the snow, his head flattened and bloody.  She doesn't tell her parents what happened -- her father will find that out the next day. Still clutching the game pieces, she makes her way across the property to her home, and when it is time to go to bed, her mom tries to take them away. That's when the screaming began; since then she hasn't uttered a single word.

Enter Ludwig Kovacs and Raffael Horn; Horn to try to help the little girl recover from her trauma and Kovacs to figure out exactly what happened and who would do such a grotesque thing.  Horn is married to Irene and has two sons, the eldest of whom has moved out. Horn spends a great deal of time pondering his move to Furth am See, as well as his relationship with his family, but he is also quite preoccupied with his patients and their respective psychoses. He has a habit of thinking out loud, but he's a good psychiatrist and cares deeply about his job.  Kovacs is divorced, and has an arrangement with a woman named Marlene in a relationship based on sex; he works with a team of detectives who are all very sharp, but this crime has stymied them.  He needs Horn's help -- the little girl was the only witness, and she's not able to say a thing.

The story is told through various points of view including those of Horn and Kovacs, but there is also a priest who runs and who is never without an Ipod, even during church services, and a boy who dresses up like Darth Vader whose brother has just returned from prison. As the story progresses, their stories expand little by little in alternating chapters, and the reader gets to know bits of their life stories and how they are connected not only to each other, but to the town as well.  Along the way there are other interesting side stories that emerge, especially those of Horn's patients, and some of them are so unsettling that you may periodically have to put the book down and walk away.

In terms of crime, as I noted above, the author has definitely taken a new approach here. Solving the crime is actually less of a concern than revealing what lies beneath the psychological surface of this small town. Although the investigative set up is pretty standard and police procedures are described much like those in other works of crime fiction, as the story drifts from perspective to perspective, it takes a while for clues and other helpful elements to emerge.  Although the motive for the crime is ultimately intriguing, neither it nor the criminal emerge until the very last few pages and then the book is over. But at least the murderer had a motive; that is not always true in the case of others in this story who have committed terrible acts of violence, or even those who know what's going on and refuse to get involved and let these horrible things happen.

This approach may not be to everyone's liking, but it is worth giving a try.  If you are inclined to judge it solely in terms of other crime fiction novels you've read, you may be disappointed, but if you stop and really think about what you've just read and that Furth am See just might be representative of other towns in other countries, it will add another dimension to your reading experience.

****

9780857050298
MacLehose Press, 2012 (UK)
originally published as Der Matrazenhaus, 2010
translated by Jamie Bulloch
246 pp
(trade paper ed)

Once again Paulus Hochgatterer uses his unconventional storytelling methods in his latest novel centered around a most horrendous and appalling crime to pry loose the secrets in his fictional town of Furth am See. I thought the crime in The Sweetness of Life was bad; this one is so much worse that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get through the book. This time he explores crimes committed against children, my least favorite topic in any kind of novel. One thing before I get into my review: on both book covers there is a very misleading statement, telling the reader that each book is a "Kovacs and Horn Investigation," but this is not actually true. While the police do go to Horn for help, it's not like the two ever team up with Kovacs handling the police end of things and Horn offering possible profiling advice or psychological insights. I realize that in some crime fiction this sort of partnership exists, but it is not the case here. So dispel yourself of that notion immediately.

This installment of the series finds Horn busy with policy changes at his workplace, friction at home between himself and his rebellious son, spending time thinking about his wife Irene and the staff at the hospital.   In the meantime, Kovacs' sexual arrangement has gone a bit awry as he finds himself falling in love with Marlene; his daughter, whom he hasn't seen for quite a while is also coming to town, he's temporarily missing one of his best detectives, and he also spends quite of bit of time pondering his colleagues. In between all of the respective personal issues, Kovacs and his staff are working on some rather odd cases: a few children have turned up beaten and bruised somewhere between their homes and school and are refusing to talk, and the only thing they will say is that is was the Black Owl that did it; a death occurs on a scaffold and no one is certain whether or not it was an accident.  Meanwhile, Horn is busy with his patients both on the wards and in a therapy group, while dealing with their  family members as well.  He is also asked by the police to work with the children who suffered the beatings in an effort to get them to talk about their ordeals.  But what neither of them are aware of is a young girl living in a house where the most unspeakable things occur.

Once again the story is told via alternating perspectives, those of Horn, Kovacs, and  now a teacher (who has her own issues) who has become the love interest of the running priest with the Ipod from Sweetness of Life.  Added to these is the voice of a young girl named Fanni, who exists with an eye to escape and  making other preparations for when the time is right. She is there when a very small child is brought to the house, and the sad story of what is happening there is spread throughout the novel in bits & pieces.  As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Hochgatterer's agenda this time is child abuse and violence toward children in any form.  While the beatings bring the two main characters to wonder whether or not they ever struck their children, adding  to their list of things to ruminate about, Kovacs'  missing detective is off working with a group working toward combating child pornography and child violence. 

There is a great deal of pondering going on in this novel, so much so in fact that at times it interrupts the narrative flow and the going can get boggy.  In all fairness, since Hochgatterer's focus is on what's beneath the surface, having his main characters do a bit of self-analysis and deepthink is definitely in line with what he does with the other characters; after all, this is part of his approach to writing.  The problem is that maybe there's a little too much reflection going on when other things are happening in the story, and especially in Horn's case, his personal reflections seem to detract from the kind of  intense attention he displayed with his patients in the first novel. They also go on and on when the rest of the story is waiting to be told; truth be told, it's a bit annoying. 

At the heart of this book you will find a very haunting story,  but around it Hochgatterer's examination of society and its secrets is also well constructed.  Again, it's not the usual linear point a to point b resolution that is expected in most crime fiction, but rather a look at what drives people, what secrets they're hiding, and how your next-door neighbor might be showing you one face while harboring an inner, more monstrous life you never would have imagined. Add to those ideas  the interconnectedness among these people and others within the framework of a town and you get an idea of what he's trying to accomplish.    This author is taking a great deal of risk in writing crime fiction this way, and other than a few minor little issues, I think he's succeeding. 

The style does take some getting used to, so I'd start with Sweetness of Life to get the feel for the author's writing and because there's always value in starting with the first book of any series. I liked it although I came away from it with feeling  a bit on edge, not due to the author's writing or any other fault, but because the core story was just so incredibly sad, and because I know that the reality behind it exists everywhere.  Just an FYI: there are enough graphic details in the story that put a picture into your head, so be warned. This book is NOT for the fainthearted, nor is it a light read at all.  I had to go do something fun after reading it just so I wasn't thinking about it all day and making myself depressed.

crime fiction from Austria