Berlin: A Novel [Hardcover]

Pierre Frei (Author), Anthea Bell (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2006

Set in a devastated Berlin one month after the close of the Second World War, Berlin has been highly acclaimed. Ben, a German boy retrieving cigarette butts to repackage and sell on the black market, discovers the body of a beautiful young woman in a subway station. Blonde and blue-eyed, she has been sexually assaulted and strangled with a chain. In the scramble to identify the body, the victim is mistaken for an American and a local investigation becomes a matter for the U.S. Military Police. Captain John Ashburner and Inspector Klaus Dietrich realize quickly that to solve this apparently motiveless murder they will have to work together. When the bodies of other young women are discovered it becomes clear that this is no isolated act of violence. Pierre Frei has searched the wreckage of Berlin and emerged with an electrifying thriller in the tradition of Joseph Kanon and Alan Furst, in which the voices and stories of the victims themselves provide an intimate portrait of Germany before, during, and after the war.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A serial killer stalks the war-torn streets of post-WWII Berlin, preying on beautiful, blonde women, in Frei's disappointing debut thriller—a bestseller in Germany. Each of the victims is shown being viciously murdered, then a long flashback tells the victim's story up to her death. Because the reader already knows how and when the young woman's life will end, there's no surprise or suspense when that end arrives. Likable German police Insp. Klaus Dietrich must work with John Ashburner, a U.S. military police captain, to find the murderer. The serial killer's character is never explored in any depth (he's driven insane because a woman laughs at the size of his penis), and his actions are so simple-mindedly brutal that a certain feeling of disgust begins to creep over the reader long before the killer's identity is finally revealed. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—A satisfying cross-genre novel that has elements of historical fiction, suspense, and a tinge of romance. A sexual sadist is roaming the streets of Berlin during the post-World War II occupation, killing blond-haired, blue-eyed young women by torturing them. After each victim is found, Frei tells the story of her life before and during the war. The victims had a wide variety of experiences during the conflict and primarily represent Germans not involved in the Nazi party. The structure of the novel allows readers an interlude before returning to the investigation and murders. This is not a book for the fainthearted, and it is more appropriate for public libraries than for schools. However, teens will enjoy the novel, particularly those searching for earthy details of both war and violent crime. While not graphic, the sexual encounters are described in strong language. The pacing is good, and once involved in the story it is difficult to put it down. There are plenty of twists and turns, and a surprise assailant. The historical elements are compelling, particularly the division of Berlin and the relationships among the occupiers and the Germans. The weakest portion of the novel is the investigation itself, which relies on coincidence and luck for the eventual solution.—Mary Ann Harlan, Arcata High School, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1 edition (October 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802118321
• ISBN-13: 978-0802118325
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,996,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Emerging from the ruins, October 19, 2006

By 

Friederike Knabe (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Berlin: A Novel (Hardcover)

Living in Berlin in 1945 was a challenge. Rubble from bombed out buildings was everywhere - people tried to live in the remnants. Negotiating the roads was an obstacle course and transport severely restricted. Food was in limited supply and cigarettes were an important commodity. Frei, who lived in Berlin at that time, and may have crafted one of his characters, teenager Ben, after his own image, paints a vivid picture of how people struggled and survived after the war. Towards the end of 1945 people start to feel that life might be getting better - at least in the western parts of the city. The author's primary subject, though, is not the portrait of a city emerging from the ruins. His narrative concentrates on the hunt for a serial killer and the young women he stalks. The story centers on the American sector and the American administrative compound around "Uncle Tom's Hut", a well known Berlin underground train station. The victims, actual and potential, work in the US compound and have passes that allow them to move outside past the curfew. The same appears to apply to whoever the killer is. This situation forces the US officers reluctantly to work with the German detective, Ben's father, who is charged with the case. Interesting tensions between victor and defeated develop as a result.

Alternating with the chapters that describe the hunt for the mysterious killer are those that narrate the stories of the victims. These descriptions move the book beyond the usual thriller genre. Frei carefully chooses women from very different social strata and backgrounds. They range from an aristocrat to a village girl turned actress to a street kid from a poor housing estate to a young widow trying to protect her disabled child. The author explores their lives from early childhood through the Nazi period and the war to the period when they are stalked by the killer. This technique allows Frei to expand into the historical background, relating the whole spectrum of German attitudes toward the regime: the enthusiasts, the middle-of-the-roaders, the naïve and the odd critic. The locales shift with each character, it could be Berlin or Spain, or a concentration camp commandant's lavish home. Some background characters turn up in different scenarios adding linkages and depth to the individual stories. The women, while very distinct and well depicted, have some traits in common: they are all beautiful, blond and blue-eyed. Frei also bestows them with a rather easygoing life style open to intimate adventures, whether for material gains or not. This would seem to be somewhat surprising for the times, but the author clearly enjoys recounting details.

Frei's Berlin is not so much a thriller as a social portrait of a city in its historical context. While the hunt for the killer keeps the reader intrigued, the real attraction of the novel is in the life stories of the young women, their background and struggles through the most dramatic and devastating period in recent German history. Anthea Bell's translation is, as always, excellent. Readers of the German original have noticed a marked improvement in language and style in her translation. [Friederike Knabe]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Good Mystery but May not Appeal to Many, September 12, 2007

By 

Sherry Danielson (Richland, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Berlin: A Novel (Hardcover)

An unusual mystery in that the focus is on the murdered women rather than on the killer. The life of each victim is revealed from about the early 1930s to the present period of the story which is summer of 1945, Berlin. Each woman has a different story to tell which I found interesting, and in revealing their story, you can observe what German life was like during the rise of the Nazis and during the war. This is not a comprehensive history of life under the Nazis, but it is focused down to the life around these women. A couple of the victims had incredible stories to tell, and then you feel the sadness of their death--after all that, their hopes were ended because of a disturbed serial killer.

Pierre Frei is an old correspondent that has lived in many parts of the world. His worldliness shows in this story. He does not have any pretensions; nor do his characters. They have had to learn to take what has been dished out to them.

A story worth reading if you are tired of the standard detective novel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Interesting women, the rest of the story lacks something...., August 15, 2008

By 

Marla R. Hadley - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Berlin: A Novel (Hardcover)

I really loved Joseph Kanon's The Good German (not to mention Alibi, the Prodigal Spy, and Los Alamos) and I was looking forward to this book because it does mention Kanon on the back cover. Now, it's not a terrible book, it captured me enough to want to keep reading because the stories about each woman's life up to the present was captivating. However, there seemed to be no authenticity regarding Berlin at the time- no mention of the rubble, the desolation or even the smell from corpses. It all seems to be parks, lakes, forests, Uncle Tom's Hut, and this teenager being remarkably able to travel about freely, his primary purpose being to save enough money for a fancy suit to impress a girl he likes in order to have sex with her. (Just a sub story and a silly one.) I suppose what did me in was there was virtually no suspense- the serial killer would just simply show up, throttle them with a dog chain, and that was the end of that. There was no suspense, no chase, and no depth into who that person was. There was however, an awful lot of sex- and not even good sex at that. It made me think this author is weirdly fascinated with bad sex (at it's most disgusting) and the entire fabric of the world he creates it based upon this. There's also the cop-out factor here- we see side characters that were active Nazi's but not a single main character seemed to have the vaguest connection with their country (although all characters show they can stand up against mighty forces, only one momentarily stands up for a Jewish friend.) There are the Nazi's, the Americans, the Russians... and then them, the victims. (I hope German school children are not taught this we-had-no-choice sap!)Furthermore, it's outrageous to find [...]