The Babylon Berlin novels of Volker Kutscher
Babylon Berlin: A Gereon Rath Mystery by Volker Kutscher. Highland. 2017. Sandstone Press. 9781910124970. Translated from the German by Niall Sellar. 544 pages. Paperback. Cover design by kid-ethic.com.
DESCRIPTION - This historical mystery set in Berlin, 1929, is the first of a popular series in Germany. Detective Inspector Rath was a successful career officer in the Cologne Homicide Division before a shooting incident in which he inadvertently killed a man. He was transferred to the Vice Squad in Berlin, a job he now detests, even though he finds a new friend in his boss, Chief Inspector Wolter. There is seething unrest in the city and the Commissioner of Police has ordered the Vice Squad to ruthlessly enforce the ban on May Day demonstrations. The result is catastrophic with many dead and injured, and a state of emergency is declared in the Communist strongholds of the city.
The Silent Death: A Gereon Rath Mystery by Volker Kutscher. Highland. 2017. Sandstone Press. 9781910985649. Translated from the German by Niall Sellar. 522 pages. Paperback. Cover design by kid-ethic.com.
DESCRIPTION - Berlin 1930. Sound film is conquering the big screen, leaving many by the wayside: producers, cinema owners and silent film stars. Investigating the violent on-set death of actress Betty Winter, Inspector Gereon Rath encounters the dark side of glamour and an industry in turmoil. When his father requests that he help his friend, the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, and his ex-girlfriend Charly makes a renewed attempt at rapprochement, things start to get out of hand. Trapped in the machinations of rival film producers, he roams Berlin's Chinese quarter and the city's underworld as he works ever closer to the edge of legality. Meanwhile the funeral of the murdered Horst Wessel leads to clashes between Nazis and Communists.
Goldstein: A Gereon Rath Mystery by Volker Kutscher. Ross-Shire. 2018. Sandstone Press. 9781912240128. Translated from the German by Niall Sellar. 535 pages. paperback. Cover design by kid-ethic.com.
DESCRIPTION - Berlin, 1931. A power struggle is taking place in Berlin's underworld. The American gangster Abraham Goldstein is in residence at the Hotel Excelsior. As a favour to the FBI, the police put him under surveillance with Detective Gereon Rath on the job. As Rath grows bored and takes on a private case for his seedy pal Johann Marlow, he soon finds himself in the middle of a Berlin street war. Meanwhile Rath's on-off girlfriend, Charly, lets a young woman she is interrogating escape, and soon her investigations cross Rath's from the other side. Berlin is a divided city where two worlds are about to collide: the world of the American gangster and the expanding world of Nazism.
The Fatherland Files: A Gereon Rath Mystery by Volker Kutscher. Ross-Shire. 2019. Sandstone Press. 9781912240562. Translated from the German by Niall Sellar. 562 pages. Paperback. Cover design by kid-ethic.com.
DESCRIPTION - 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 Silent Death: A Gereon Rath Mystery by Volker Kutscher. Iverness. 2020. Sandstone Press. 9781913207045. Translated from the German by Niall Sellar. 512 pages. paperback. Cover design by kid-ethic.com.
DESCRIPTION - 1933: A homeless veteran is found dead under railway arches in Berlin; apparently killed by an army dagger. Gereon Rath is brought onto the case just as the Reichstag mysteriously burns down. Unsettled by the Nazis’ tightening grip; he and Charlotte Ritter must also contend with their political colleagues. The new Germany is frightening; but police work must go on even among book-burning and marching; rising paranoia and fear.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Volker Kutscher (born December 26, 1962) studied German language and literature studies, philosophy and history. He works as journalist and writer. His crime stories took place in the Berlin during the Weimar Republic and contain a lot of descriptions of this city and time.
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Babylon Berlin is also a German neo-noir television series. Created, written, and directed by Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries, and Hendrik Handloegten, it is loosely based on novels by Volker Kutscher.
A troubled cop and a working class typist uncover a political conspiracy amid the vice and glamour of 1920s Berlin. The series begins in 1929 during the latter years of the Weimar Republic and follows Gereon Rath (Volker Bruch), a police inspector on assignment from Cologne who is on a secret mission to dismantle an extortion ring, and Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries), police clerk by day, prostitute by night, who aspires to become a police inspector.
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