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Days of Atonement: A Mystery

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Aeschylus

There is no atonement to be found for the blood spilt in Michael Gregorio's (the pen name for the writing team of Michael Jacob and Daniela De Gregorio) Days of Atonement. But what Procurator (Magistrate) Hanno Stiffeniis hopes to find is the identity of the killer(s) and, more importantly, some explanation for the cause of the crime.

Set in the town of Lotingen, Prussia, this is the second book featuring Hanno Stiffeniis. In the first book, Critique of Criminal Reason: A Mystery, Hanno is summoned from Lotingen to Konigsberg in 1804 to assist in the investigation of a series of brutal murders. What then follows is the literary birth of the science of forensic criminal investigation. Kant, aged 80 and in rapidly failing health, believes that crimes should be analyzed using what may be called a `critique of reason'. Now, three years later, Hanno is asked to help solve another gruesome crime. Lotingen has been occupied by Napoleon's invading army for a year. Three young children have been found brutally murdered in a small cottage outside of Lotingen. Their mother has disappeared and their father, a Prussian soldier is away, stationed at a remote fort in territory not yet under French control. News of the murders puts the local Prussian authorities and the French occupying forces on high alert. Rumors fly and fingers of blame are pointed at both the local Jewish community (the centuries-old blood libel about ritual killing) and the French occupying forces. If left unsolved the murders could give rise to disastrous and violent consequences for the local Prussian authorities, the French garrison, and the local Jewish community. Hanno and a French officer, Colonel Lavedrine, are tasked with `solving' the crime. The rest of the book plays out as Hanno and Lavedrine conduct their investigation. Although Lavedrine is also a disciple of Kant their personality, underlying motives and their reasoning skills differ widely. The story is driven along two parallel tracks - the investigation itself and the inherent conflict between the two men.

Gregorio does a fine job in creating a compelling story line and keeping the `pot boiling'. I was impressed by a number of aspects of the book. Gregorio paints a nice portrait of life in Prussia during the Napoleonic Wars. His description of the town, its people, and the tense relationship between the local Prussian officials and the French occupiers had a very authentic ring to it. Further, Gregorio has done a fine job of portraying forensic criminal investigation at its infancy. You can see Hanno and Lavedrine struggle to apply `reason' to their crime solving endeavors while at the same time not making their approach too modern. On the critical side, there were some passages that seemed a bit too breathless in its presentation. It is hard sometimes when painting a word picture of a climactic event in a book not to fall into the trap of using over dramatic prose. However, I think that more a minor quibble in a story that is fast-paced.

Overall, Gregorio presents us with a story that is both plot-driven while remaining thoughtful and rich in ideas. Days of Atonement is a very good sequel and well-worth reading. L. Fleisig

Michael Gregorio's "Days of Atonement" opens during the cold Prussian autumn of 1807. A year earlier, Napoleon's army invaded much of Europe, and ever since, the vanquished citizens of Prussia have been angrily chafing under French rule. Procurator Hanno Stiffeniis is a respected magistrate who lives in Lotingen with his beautiful wife, Helena, and their growing family. At a dinner party, he meets Parisian criminologist Colonel Serge Lavedrine, who claims that in 1793, he corresponded with the great thinker, Immanuel Kant, a man whom Hanno had admired and worked with closely in Konigsberg.

Lavedrine had been impressed with Kant's insights into the "bent wood of humanity," especially the professor's suggestion that "there is a less predictable side to the human heart" than the one casual observers notice. Hanno takes an instant dislike to the pretentious and condescending Serge. Soon, however, the criminologist and Hanno are forced to work together to solve a baffling case. A woodsman has reported finding the mutilated corpses of two brothers and their sister lying on a bed in an isolated cottage. Their mother, Sybille Gottewald, is missing and their father, Bruno, is a soldier who is stationed in Kamenetz, a remote military outpost. Hanno follows Kant's method of "recording the mechanics of a crime" by taking notes and making sketches of the scene, whereas Laverdine uses his eyes and his well-honed instincts to ferret out clues. Unfortunately, neither Hanno's scrutiny nor Laverdine's insight provides a quick solution to this horrific puzzle. Trouble is brewing in the form of anti-Semitism when a hysterical populace starts spreading rumors that the Jews killed the children to use their blood for religious rituals. If the real perpetrator is not found promptly, riots might break out, leading to even more carnage.

The magistrate's inquiries take him to Kamenetz where a sadistic nationalist named General Juri Katowice commands a fiercely loyal band of Prussians, some little more than children, and teaches them to be as cruel and merciless as he is. The magistrate makes several perplexing discoveries that deepen the mystery surrounding the Gottewald murders. Hanno also finds himself walking a political tightrope, trying to allay the qualms of the District Governor, Count Aldebrand Dittersdorf, while at the same time pacifying the French occupiers. His time-consuming investigation places a strain on his relationship with Helena, who seems to be fascinated by the dashing Serge Lavedrine.

Michael Jacob and Daniela De Gregorio, who co-wrote this book under a pen name, have created an engrossing, complex, and wrenching tale of political intrigue, religious persecution, and madness. The authors depict life in Prussia under Napoleonic rule with great care and precision, and they juggle their large cast and multi-layered plot with aplomb. The suspense mounts to an excruciating level until the investigators (with the help of Helena, an old manuscript by Kant, and the observations of a Jewish scientist named Aaron Jacob) finally learn the identity of the children's killer and the motive for a seemingly senseless act of violence.

The proud Prussians of rural Lotingen chafe under the yoke of Napoleon's occupation, but a gruesome, baffling murder forces magistrate Hanno Stiffeniis to join the French Colonel Lavedrine in finding the culprit.

This is Stiffeniis's second foray into crime solving (after "Critique of Criminal Reason") and Lavedrine, a Holmesian-style criminologist, is eager to hear of Stiffeniis' work with the legendary philosopher Immanuel Kant, who helped the magistrate solve his first case in 1804, a few years previous.

Stiffeniis recoils from the Frenchman, not only out of patriotic distrust, but also to guard his own secrets, but when three children are murdered in a bizarre, ritualistic fashion and their mother disappears, he has no choice but to combine his methods with Lavedrine's.

While Stiffeniis compiles sketches of the oddly bloodless scene, Lavedrine trusts the deductive power of his senses. Both men rely on psychological insights, though their reasoning takes them in different directions. Meanwhile rumors are flying that the town's Jews are responsible, having murdered the children for their innocent Christian blood. Mobs threaten and tensions erupt.

Stiffeniis travels to the Prussian military post where the children's father, Major Gottewold, is stationed, only to discover that Major Gottewold is beyond his questions. He was killed in a military exercise several weeks before the murder of his children.

The atmosphere at the garrison is fanatical and sinister and Stiffeniis comes away with suspicions he cannot share with the Frenchman and questions that make the case more baffling than ever. His state of mind is not improved upon discovering that Lavedrine has been busy involving Stiffeniis' wife in the case.

Gregorio (the pen name of Michael G. Jacob and Daniela De Gregorio) sweeps the reader into the story by deepening the mystery with every clue and relying on character development to complicate the puzzle and involve the reader. Stiff-backed, guarded, proud Stiffeniis squares off against the laconic, inquisitive Lavedrine and as Lavedrine insinuates himself into Stiffeniis' private life each comes to a cautious understanding of the other.

The story is complex and atmospheric with the rigors of a Prussian winter exerting a deep chill over every movement and development. The ending, while haunting, is a bit farfetched and disappointing. Nevertheless, Gregorio delivers a deeply absorbing narrative, with a flawed and intriguing protagonist. Readers will look forward to further acquaintance with Magistrate Stiffeniis and his spirited, lovely, and neurotic wife, Helena.

A massacre in a cabin. Three dead children - two boys, one girl. The boys' bodies are mutilated. There is very little blood to be found. And the childrens' mother is missing. Who killed them? And why?

This gruesome crime is the centerpiece of Michael Gregorio's second Hanno Stiffeniis novel, "Days of Atonement". Four years after the events of "Critique of Criminal Reason", Hanno has enjoyed the quiet life as a magistrate in the small Prussian town of Lotingen. Life has changed dramatically since the French invasion, but he has not had to deal with murder again - until the events in the cabin. At the invitation of one of the French officers, Serge Lavendrine, Hanno assists in the investigation. But who would commit this crime? Where is the mother? And who exactly were the people in the cabin?

To solve the mystery, Stiffeniis and Lavendrine decide to take two different paths. Hanno is convinced that the answer lies at a remote outpost of the Prussian army, where the family's father, Bruno Gottewald, serves. Lavendrine thinks the clues to unraveling the crime are in the house itself. Both, however, go about solving the mystery with science, in the practice established by the famed Immanuel Kant. Hanno was, after all, one of Kant's pupils and close friends, and Lavendrine studied his methods extensively.

However, the mystery is more complex than both men give it credit for. Evidence is present, but it doesn't seem to mean anything. When the duo bring in Hanno's wife to get a woman's perspective on the crime, what they discover is horrifying. But could it be true?

"Days of Atonement" is definitely a solid mystery, set in early 19th century Napoleonic Prussia. And while the content is disturbing, the story is told extremely well. I would, however, recommend reading "Critique of Criminal Reason" before starting this one, as it refers back to the earlier work several times.

Bonaparte's French forces occupy Prussia as it has for several years. Most villagers try to avoid the troops who need no reason to arrest someone. In Lotingen magistrate Hanno Stiffeniis knows the constant fear of incarceration or death although he is more concerned with his family's safety than his own.

At a formal party Stiffeniis and French Colonel Lavedrine discuss criminology, which both has an interest in. The Prussian magistrate mentions applying philosopher Immanuel Kant's classic Critique of Pure Reason to a case (see CRITIQUE OF CRIMINAL REASON), which excites the French officer. He asks Stiffeniis to help him investigate the ghastly murders of Prussian Major Bruno Gottewald's three small children and the disappearance of his wife who Lavedrine believes was abducted and probably dead. The wife is soon found dead in a warehouse. Meanwhile Stiffeniis goes to inform and question Gottewald, but instead finds his murdered corpse. A family of five I killed in less than a week, but Stiffeniis cannot fathom why or who would commit such atrocities.

The second Prussian-French historical mystery is a superb thriller that hooks the audience from the moment the two criminologists talk about crime theory over dinner. The whodunit is fun to follow because of the sleuths as Stiffeniis and Lavedrine share prevalent theories of the Napoleonic Era on how to solve a murder mystery; they each bring their form of logic to the Gottewald family mass murders.

Harriet Klausner

"Days of Atonement" has an interesting historical context--French-occupied East Prussia circa 1807. It is a murder mystery with a classic police procedural story line. So far, so good. The book's premise and plot are original and engaging enough to be entertaining, but where the novel lost some of my interest/appreciation was in the ponderous development of the characters and the portrayal of the geographic context. The author strives for a 19th Century tone and sensibility and maybe he succeeded too well. Everything written evokes a dark, gothic heaviness that slows the book's action and stifles the characters as people. One of the story's principals, Prussian magistrate Hanno Stiffeniis, is alternately grumpy and angry. His French counterpart/colleague, criminologist Serge Lavedrine, is alternately brilliant and capricious. The great villain of the piece, a renegade Prussian general, is an over-the-top 19th Century Darth Vader type, who only shows up in a couple of cameos.

Granted the story is basically a police procedural with all the step-by-step process that goes with the genre, its glacial slowness in developing doesn't offer much comfort in interesting characters along the road to resolution. This isn't a bad book, but it lacks snap and crackle that can be found in a lot of other novels available.

I admit it: I purchased Days of Atonement because I liked the cover. You know how it is; you need something to read and browse covers. Well, Days of Atonement is a book you can tell by its cover.

Gregorio ( a penman for a husband and wife writing team) takes us into the world of Prussia, held captive by Napolean's forces. The local magistrate Hanno Steffeniis is called in to solve a murder. Torn between helping the forces that rule him and his honor to his country, Hanno diigently solves the crime.

Gregorio manages to run his plot through early 19th century Prussia while also evoking the emotions of living in a land occupied by captors. After reading Days of Atonement I immediately purchased Gregorio's first book. Get both and fear not; a wonderful vacation adventure.

i picked this up at a doller store, in hardcover, I didnt expect much from it but as i read the first few chapters, i gripped onto me, it has historical value with a little murder mystery woven in. great find for a couple of bucks! would reccomend to anyone but some of the content should be for ages 16+

Great Read. Definately must follow Critique of Criminal Reason to understand the full scope of Hanno's thought process. There is something that Days of Atonement doesn't mention about Professor Kant that perhaps will be revealed in the future. I will anxiously keep an eye on my mailbox when April 15th passes.

I love quality intellectual mysteries, and this novel is the best I have read in a long, long time. It is 1807; Napoleon's army has swept over Prussia, and the French army occupies the conquered land. Hanno Stiffeniis, a local Prussian magistrate, along with his wife, Helena, and their three children have retreated to their country home in hopes of avoiding trouble.

When three children are found murdered in a cabin, and their mother is missing, Hanno is called upon to assist the French Colonel Serge Lavedrine in investigating the crime. Each man wants to find the killer, and to exhibit their own superior investigative skills without really pointing their accusatory finger at the other man.

Stiffeniis begins a search for the missing woman's husband. He travels to a remote town that is still in the hands of the Prussian Army, only to discover that the husband too, has died under mysterious circumstances. The pace goes into high gear when the missing wife is found dead in the most gruesome of circumstances. This is a novel that tells of difficult times with a sometimes dark mood-that also has explicit forensic detail-but maintains an exciting pace.

Gregorio also wrote the acclaimed historical mystery, Critique of Criminal Reason, and in this novel, French, Prussians, and Jews are pitted against each other in a multi-level mystery with exciting and unique characters. The plot takes you in many different directions and brings you to an unexpected conclusion.

I couldn't put this book down, and will definitely be watching for more from this talented author.

Armchair Interviews says: A most well-done historical mystery about a time 200 years ago.