Breslau was a German city on the border of Czechoslovakia. It is now, since World War II, Wroclaw, in Poland. Marek Krajewski has written a quartet of novels which unfold the history of this exceptional city, standing on the faultline and crossroads of 20th century Europe. Breslau 1933: the mutilated body of a young woman, an aristocrat, is found dead on a train. Scorpions writhe in her slashed stomach - a horrifying image that becomes crucial to the investigation. Inspector Eberhard Mock is called in to deal with the case, and is assigned an assistant, Herbert Anwaldt, an orphan. The investigation leads them deep into the city's dirty underbelly, where perverted aristocrats cavort with prostitutes, corrupt ministers torture confessions from lowly Jews and Freemasons guard their secrets with blackmail and daggers. As Mock and Anwaldt unravel a mystery of ritual killing that dates back to the time of the Crusades, the elderly Mock and the young, fatherless Anwaldt become close. But the dark, occult aspect of this most macabre of cases, coupled with the heavy presence of Germany's secret police proves too much for Anwaldt's sanity. What makes Krajewski's story so uncommonly powerful is the stifling atmosphere he conjures of a city in the grip of the Gestapo.
Death in Breslau: An Eberhard Mock Investigation
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Krajewski has Mankell's sharp eye for detail, but he has, too, a more sophisticated frame of reference that may intrigue fans of Umberto Eco and Boris Akunin...Death In Breslau is a stylish, intelligent and original addition to the canon - Financial Times
The city of Breslau is as much a character in this thriller as the parade of gothic loons that inhabit it … This addictive soup has an air of the burlesque about it - Daily Telegraph
...this thriller is as noir as they get. Steeped in a rank air of cynicism and fear...Danusia Stock's translation is terse and gripping…this complex and atmospheric thriller will find many fans, who will eagerly await the rest of Karjewski's Breslau quartet - Independent
…reminiscent of Georg Grosz…Death In Breslau isn't just an exciting mystery, it's the story of lost Fatherland … wonderful - Guardian
Krajewski relishes the period detail as takes us from bloody interrogation cells to Madame LeGoef's sweaty bordello … Sex and sadism dominate … above all you get the sense that Krajewski is enjoying teasing and tormenting us with numerous examples of the violent coming together of eroticism and the body-politic. In this respect, Death in Breslau is strongly reminiscent of Alain Robbe-Grillet's Repetition … What's haunting about Krajewski's book, however, is that the worst was yet to come - Independent on Sunday
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Review for Death in Breslau:
Krajewski has Mankell's sharp eye for detail, but he has, too, a more sophisticated frame of reference that may intrigue fans of Umberto Eco and Boris Akunin...Death In Breslau is a stylish, intelligent and original addition to the canon - Financial Times
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By Michael Gale
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I was pitched into the stultifying summer heat of pre-war Breslau with this gripping tale that has me waiting in great anticipation for Krajewski's next offering. A dark world of ritual murder, sexual frisson and summer heat.As suggested before this is a darker, more noir take on Philip Kerr's detective Bernie Gunther. I really was able to generate a wonderfully immersive sense of both place and character when I read this story.
Its a shame you cant enjoy a book twice the same way you did the first time.
Its a shame you cant enjoy a book twice the same way you did the first time.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By DOGG
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Gripping....a simple word for this novel that i just cannot stop reading, i am not a fan of crime fiction, the genre that has created a whole heap of nothing but this Polish thriller is above and beyond some of the formulaic tripe of our times.
The regional german city of Breslau is the setting, in 1933, as the Nazi's start to take control of every aspect of urban life. (Breslau is now the large poliash city of Wrocslaw). Heavy summer heat,depravity and the endless twists and turns of patronage, from Nazi thugs to aristocratic perverts, makes this a dizzy and desperate tale of the times.
The actual crime fiction elememts are fairly standard but its the wonderful feel of the novel that draws you in, be warned though, this isnt a jolly read, the perversions and violence are nilhistic and unsettling.
Not quite similar to Mankell with his questioning,intellectual mastery but a thinking persons novel of stifling summer heart and suspense.
The regional german city of Breslau is the setting, in 1933, as the Nazi's start to take control of every aspect of urban life. (Breslau is now the large poliash city of Wrocslaw). Heavy summer heat,depravity and the endless twists and turns of patronage, from Nazi thugs to aristocratic perverts, makes this a dizzy and desperate tale of the times.
The actual crime fiction elememts are fairly standard but its the wonderful feel of the novel that draws you in, be warned though, this isnt a jolly read, the perversions and violence are nilhistic and unsettling.
Not quite similar to Mankell with his questioning,intellectual mastery but a thinking persons novel of stifling summer heart and suspense.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is probably the best detective story/ thriller I've ever read, although I probably liked it as a novel more than as a whodunnit. The plot itself is over-elaborate and slightly unconvincing involving a vendetta which reaches back to the Crusades. Set in the 1930s in what is now Poland where the Nazis are just coming in to power, its central character Eberhard Mock is an extremely ambitious, brothel-loving senior policeman. In other circumstances the 'gloomy neurotic' Mock would have been a morally flawed, not particularly pleasant man. What the author Krajewski does so well is show how the particularly appalling brutalitiy of the Nazis can turn an ordinarly morally flawed being like Mock, into someone verging on the evil. Mock is prepared to let a young Jewish girl become a morphine addict and prostitute, her father to be killed, and probably the only person he has ever genuinely loved go mad in order to further his career. Yet despite that, the author manages to make Mock sympathetic. You too, he seems to say, under the pressures of the SS and the Nazis, might behave in the same way. The Nazi regime put Mock to the test in the way that most of us never are. Mock failed as most of us probably would under similar circumstances.
Like Rankin, Krajewski is in love with a city - in this case Breslau - and lovingly details its cafes, restaurants, buildings and streets. Unfortunately he is as meticulous in recording the torture inflicted by the SS and by Mock and his assistant. Sexual and physical violence seep from every pore of his characters, from the effete barons with their exquisite paintings and orgies, to the red-faced sweating SS torturer.
If I've made the book sound nasty, it is. Not just sex and violence, but scorpions also creep through its pages. But Death In Breslau escapes all the tired conventions of the detective story and provides a really convincing picture of the slow corruption of a city and its inhabitants under the influence of the Nazis.
Like Rankin, Krajewski is in love with a city - in this case Breslau - and lovingly details its cafes, restaurants, buildings and streets. Unfortunately he is as meticulous in recording the torture inflicted by the SS and by Mock and his assistant. Sexual and physical violence seep from every pore of his characters, from the effete barons with their exquisite paintings and orgies, to the red-faced sweating SS torturer.
If I've made the book sound nasty, it is. Not just sex and violence, but scorpions also creep through its pages. But Death In Breslau escapes all the tired conventions of the detective story and provides a really convincing picture of the slow corruption of a city and its inhabitants under the influence of the Nazis.
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3.8 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth reading!
If you read this one, you'll definitely go to the next books by Krajewski. A very good story with an unusual policeman. You can't love him but it's difficult not to like him. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Kasha
1.0 out of 5 stars
A crunching, lurching, obscure mess. And that's being kind.
Within a few pages of reading, it was apparent that there was a serious fault with this novel. Whether it lies with the author or the translator, I know not. Read more
Published 4 months ago by MrLiversalts
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointment in Breslau.......maybe harsh
The book is set in Breslau a pre-WW2 town in Germany in 1933, subsequently Polish post-war.
In a nutshell, a triple murder, double rape has occurred and Mock the... Read more
In a nutshell, a triple murder, double rape has occurred and Mock the... Read more
Published 7 months ago by col2910
3.0 out of 5 stars
no heroes or anti-heroes just villians
This book should have been right up my street - strong characters, historical pre-World War II setting, interesting plot - but it just never clicked for me. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Rob Kitchin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Death in Breslau
This is a dark, noir novel, which is both bizarre and extreme. In the heat of a pre-war summer a seventeen year old girl and her governess are discovered murdered in a railway... Read more
Published 12 months ago by S Riaz
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blackest humour
Not so much Crime Noir as humour noir for me this one.
Bit of a romp through the moral decay of pre war Germany. Read more
Bit of a romp through the moral decay of pre war Germany. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mr. A. I. Harrison
2.0 out of 5 stars
Unclear, grim, depressing...
I am baffled that several others claim to like this book. The writing (or, maybe, translation) is very poor - to the point that quite often, the reader has no idea what is... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Scarlet Noir
3.0 out of 5 stars
Putting the anti into anti-hero
It is difficult to feel much sympathy for any of the characters in this book, apart from the doomed Jew Isidor Friedlander, and his similarly ill-fated daughter, Lea. Read more
Published on 25 Sep 2010 by Woolgatherer
1.0 out of 5 stars
Was I reading the same book as everyone else?!?
I managed 60 pages of this before binning it. It read like a bad translation. I had no idea what was going on or who was who. It kept telling me what to think. Read more
Published on 4 Sep 2010 by Mrs. C. J. Jones
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fine Polish Crime Fiction
Marek Krajewski's Death in Breslau is a work of historical fiction by a Polish crime-writer of distinction. Read more
Published on 17 Mar 2009 by Feanor
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