Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Immersive story telling., 8 Feb 2009
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.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
darker noir, 5 Sep 2008
this book held my attention from page one, taut and compelling. very much anovel to compare with phillip kerr and bernie gunter,somewhat more graphic when observing the scenes of torture, but did add up to realistic view of the period. the story held together very well and held my attention untill the end.
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A sleight of hand performed on the buyer, 22 Feb 2009
not by Krajewski, the book's author, but by Amazon (can a bookseller describe a book he didn't even glance at, or, more generally, carry a product not knowing what it is without saying so?) or the reviewers it cites?
[Some of the reviews (by English newspapers) I reproduce are published only at Amazon's US site.]
I beg you, hypothetical peruser of this rev, re-read Amazon's "Editorial Reviews" (both "Review" and "Product Description"). If you're lazy, I'll reproduce them for you:
QUOTE REVIEW: "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 moral laxity of Germany is brought vividly to life in Marek Krajewski's delightfully seedy Death In Breslau - Daily Telegraph. - an historical whodunit with class, a fascinating portrait of a city - Tribune (Labour Party newspaper)" UNQUOTE.
QUOTE Product Description
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 bodies of a young woman and her ladies' maid are found dead on a train. Scorpions writhe in their 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 might prove too much for Anwaldt's sanity before a solution is secured. What makes Krajewski's story so uncommonly powerful is the stifling atmosphere he conjures of a city in the grip of the Gestapo. UNQUOTE.
Would't you purchase such a book? I did.
I started reading: 17-year-old Marietta von Malten has been raped and murdered, together with her governess and a train attendant, just before arriving at Breslau; a bloody scrawl in an unknown alphabet is found scribbled in the compartment's lining. Inspector Mock is in charge, and he goes to consult Professor Andreae, an expert in oriental languages. Up to this point, Krajewski's writing style is a little strange, but nothing outlandish. Then Mock starts to speak: "Professor, you've been lecturing at our university for thirty years now ... ". Very correct, very Prussian (although Breslau is in Silesia). Andreae evades a question, and Mock suddendly rises from his chair, thrusts his face close to Andreae's goatee, and shouts: "Listen here, you old goat: maybe you're the one that killed the girl. Did you chase her in your turban, ... , you grotesque dwarf?" (page 19 of the MMP ed). I stopped reading, puzzled. I reread the 19 pages. Then I realized.
The book's idiom is a mixture of Berg's opera Wozzek's and surrealism/theater of the absurd's styles. You can't read it in an ordinary mystery/murder/thriller key. It's not written that way or for that purpose. It's a totally allegorical story in a macabre farcical style as befits the sources I cited. It does have a plot, and the murders' motive does go back to the 13th C (?), and it does depict prewar Silesian/German/Nazi characters as harsh, brutal, sticklers for detail, duplicitous, and all the other stereotypes (or realities, I wouldn't know as I wasn't there). But you absolutely can't read it other than in a symbolic key. It's like trying to listen to Wozzek (or, say, Schnittke's "Life with an idiot" or Shostakovich's "The Nose") as a collection of cavatinas or romantic waltzing melodies. They juss ain't there, man!
That said, I'm going to reread the book because it's complicated and, if you know what it is, it can even be interesting, although never carefree-enjoyable.
But what really bothers me are the papers' reviews, and Amazon product description. No way an even moderately literate person could have failed to recognize what the book really was (it's true that, as the Financial Times implied, it brings to mind Eco and Bakunin: like those other writers' works, it's also written on paper). Terefore,
(1) either the critics don't read the books they review; or
(2) they are ignorant as hell; or
(3) somebody's dishonestly abusing the readers' good faith.
I knew blurbs don't really mean anything, but to this extent!
Why three stars? As I said, it's a good book (although I don't like this genre very much, and as I said IMO you certainly don't read it for fun), and perhaps a very good one.
Only, caveat emptor.
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