Kirkus Reviews
1930: Silent movie actress Betty Winter is killed on set after a lighting system falls on her. Inspector Gereon Rath suspects sabotage. Talkies are destroying careers in a world already bubbling with studio wars and sexual politics. Then another actress is found dead, this time with her vocal cords removed.
‘Set in atmospheric 1930s Berlin where a maverick detective is hunting a serial killer The Silent Death, like its predecessor, Babylon Berlin, owes much to its author’s commitment to histor-ical accuracy and the cynical feel of the times.’
Peter James
1931: Abraham Goldstein, professional hit man, arrives in Berlin from New York. Gereon Rath is assigned to keep him out of action – a boring job when the city’s stores are being robbed, an underworld power struggle is playing out, and Nazi brownshirts are patrolling the streets. But Goldstein will surprise them all.
‘Goldstein is maybe the best of the series so far ... like the bastard love child of Christopher Isherwood and Raymond Chandler.’
CrimeReads
1932: A drowned man is found in a freight elevator in the giant pleasure palace on Potsdamer Platz, far from any standing water. Inspector Gereon Rath’s hunt for a mysterious contract killer has stalled, but this new case will take him to a small town on the Polish border and confrontation with the rising Nazi party.
‘The body count steadily mounts in Rath’s most complicated case to date.’
Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking
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