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It is Vienna at the beginning of the last century, and Dr Max Liebermann is a young psychoanalyst - and disciple of Freud. Psychoanalysis is only just developing and viewed with a mixture of excitement and suspicion. The world of 1900s Vienna is one where philosophy, science and art are at their most exciting and flourishing, with the coffee shops full of men and women debating the latest cultural and political theories.
Liebermann's good friend Oskar Rheinhardt is a Detective Inspector - hard working, but lacking Liebermann's insights and forensic eye and so it is through Rheinhardt that Libermann is called upon to help with police investigations surrounding the death of a beautiful young medium, in what seems at first to be supernatural circumstances. While Liebermann attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery, he also must decide whether he is to follow his father's advice and marry the beautiful but reserved Clara.
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Customer Reviews
So far so good but what elevates this book way above anything like a "typical" crime novel is the attention to detail and the quality of the writing. Vienna itself becomes a character in the novel every bit as much as London, with its swirling fog and flickering gas lamps, does in the Sherlock Holmes stories. The dress, architecture, music and cafe society of the time are all beautifully described. Further, the characters from the likeable Max with his pretty but shallow fiance; Inspector Rheinhardt with his devotion to duty and his loving wife; the down-trodden Uberhorst with his almost fetishistic love of locks and keys and the disturbed English governess, Amelia Lydgate, with her burning desire to further her grandfather's work on the subject of blood and the human circulation, are all expertly drawn and given depth. Even Fraulein Lowenstein, the beautiful medium who never makes a living appearance in the novel, is retrospectively given a vivid history of crippling poverty and passionate love affairs: a beautiful and shrewd woman making the most of her looks before the inevitable passage of time takes them away from her. Not a victim, not a user, simply a human being trying to make the most of what she has.
I bought this as my third choice in a "3 for 2" offer and it turned out to be my best buy of the three. It's excellent stuff and bodes well for any future novels in the series: beautifully written, excellent believable characters and a superb evocation of time and place. Fabulous stuff, and the mystery itself is a belter too!
This is an excellent book, I found it a bit like a small bowl of salty nuts, once I start it I could not stop reading until I had finished, and then when I had finished, I wanted to read more of the same kind. The story is set in Vienna at the time of Freud, and plot revolves around the "classical locked room murder" treated in an innovative and novel way. The victim, a beautiful medium, is found murdered in a way that leads her followers, and the public at large, attribute her death to the intervention of some supernatural power. The hero solves the murder with the aid of psychoanalytic techniques. The book is more than a good "who-done-it", the author, who is well known for his excellent books on psychology and psychoanalysis, presents the reader with a clear picture of the times and social settings out of which psychoanalysis evolved. There are makes many social observations on decedent Vienna and how people live there during Freud's time. One is also shown how at that time women were regarded inferior beings, silly hysterical creatures, which were prone to the strangest psychiatric illnesses. Additionally the book contains some beautifully drawn characters that are easily visualized because they are so well described. There is the hero Dr. Liebermann`s fiancé, the lovely, but shallow Claire: one of the victims customers, the vulgar fat and wealthy Cosima and, of course the victim herself, who is presented firstly and a bad character who gets her just deserves, but later as not only a murder victim, but also a victim of her times and social situation. Having enjoyed this book so much I just hope that it is the beginning of a series.
What weaknesses the novel has are authorial - apparently this is a first novel, and it's interesting how the reader can watch the development of skill as the book goes on. Mortal Mischief opens with far too many overblown similes and develops into a much more restrained writing style later on. More irritating is the perfection of the lead character. The author is a Psychiatrist and large sections of the book read almost like propaganda for the profession; Liebermann is too perfect. Observant, intelligent, wise, gentle and kind, there is never a moment of human failure in his deductive powers of the sort even Holmes sometimes had ("I have been blind, Watson, blind!"), and those who oppose him and his profession are too stupid, unkind and ruthless to really engage the reader's sympathies with his character and struggles.
In all, it's a good book and a clever mystery, but weakened by the over-perfection of the lead character and a writing style which needs polish. Hopefully these wrinkles will be ironed out in the next book of the series.
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