Customer Reviews

A Death in Vienna

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Frank Tallis's "A Death in Vienna" features psychiatrist Max Liebermann, who is a disciple of Sigmund Freud. Vienna is a cosmopolitan capital that delights the senses with its beautiful music, architectural wonders, scenic vistas, and culinary delights. It is also the birthplace of psychoanalysis, of which Max is an expert practitioner, much to the disdain of his superior, Professor Wolfgang Gruner. Gruner prefers to treat hysteria with electricity, while Max feels that it is far more productive and humane to to help his patients by exploring their dreams and subconscious memories.

Max's best friend and confidante is Detective Oskar Reinhardt, who often calls on Max for his expert opinion. It seems that Max's superior powers of observation and his expertise in diseases of the mind make him an excellent amateur sleuth. Oskar presents his friend with a enigma involving a beautiful young woman, Charlotte Lowenstein, who is found dead in her sitting room. She was apparently shot, but no bullet or exit wound was found. In addition, suicide can be ruled out, since there there was no murder weapon at hand. To make matters even more bewildering, the sitting room door was locked from the inside and no one could have climbed out of the window. Since Charlotte was a medium who frequently conducted seances, some people suspect that a supernatural force killed her. However, Max scoffs at this idea and he sets out to help his friend solve the crime. In addition, Max is preoccupied with treating a patient named Amelia Lydgate, who is suffering from partial paralysis. He uses hypnosis in an attempt to uncover the source of his patient's distress.

Frank Tallis has written an engaging novel that is also a travelogue of Vienna in the late nineteenth century. Max is an appealing character, who is courageous, brilliant, insightful, and compassionate. His friendship with Oskar extends not only to professional matters, but the two also enjoy music, meals, drinks, and cigars together. Oskar is a happily married man whom Max intends to emulate when he settles down with the woman he has been seeing, the lovely Clara Weiss.

"A Death in Vienna" is a clever "locked room" mystery with a truly ingenious solution. Tallis depicts his large cast of characters with flair, and he includes pointed social commentary about the political situation in Vienna, the role of women during the turn of the century, and the ugly specter of anti-Semitism that was already poisoning the atmosphere in Austria. The book has a cliffhanger ending which will entice readers to stay tuned for the next installment in this series.

This psychological mystery/thriller is set during a time of great change, in particular the introduction of psychological theory by Dr. Freud, and of females into the medical profession. One of the primary characters is suffering from hysteria, a condition which was considered by some medical practitioners of the early 20th century to be due to female hormones. Fortunately she is treated by a doctor who has read Freud and understands the new "talking" cure. He is able to discover the roots of her illness and eliminate symptoms.

In addition there is also a murder mystery, set among the seances of the active spiritualist movement of the time.

Tallis does a nice job of blending the development of early psychological theory with the cultural history of Vienna. He is adept at tying together the socio-economic strands that created oppression for women and minorities yet also details personal triumphs over such oppression by members of those minorities.

The writing is fairly good and the characters are interesting. For me there were too many characters to keep track of and not enough about the characters that I found interesting. Nevertheless if you like a psychological mystery it is worth a look!

Just as the dark moods and buoyant spirits of London of the late 19th century contrast in the narratives of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, so does the pomp and gloss of imperial majesty scrape up against the black, sordid underbelly of Vienna in Tallis' fin de siecle mystery.

The star of the piece is a young Jewish doctor interested in the fledging discipline of psychiatry. He navigates carefully through the corridors occupied by the controversial Sigmund Freud, the anti-Semitic Karl Lueger, Mayor of Vienna and other fascintating denizons of that era.

The mystery which the young doctor helps solve is a variant of a closed door puzzle, the suspects are well-drawn and the solution is satisfying.

The surprise was the skill with which Tallis, a psychiatrist himself with a spate of published texts, handles the descriptive passages. His insights and flourishes are worthy of the best descriptive writers. As a frequent visitor to Vienna and a reader of many texts and novels about the city, I was amazed to read exquisite passages which captured so exactly the feel and mood of the city. I must add that I am generally more inclined to narrative than description but Tallis is so exceptional in the latter that one almost forgets the former.

All in all, I would strongly recommend this worthy first novel in what one hopes will be a long series.

A Woman is murdered in the early 20th century of Vienna. There is no bullet found and the door of the room where the murder takes place is locked from the inside. Dr. Lieberman is called by his detective friend to help solve the case. I thought the setting was interesting. I liked the references to Sigmund Freud. The mystery did not grab my attention, however. I thought there were too many mini-plots that were really not pertinent to the story. I wondered if they were intentional to make the book longer. The resolution was weak. There wasn't enough of a surprise at the end. Disappointing and not highly recommended.

"Death in Vienna" succeeds on several levels. It presents a portrait of the comfortable life of middle/upper middle class Viennese with their theaters and coffee houses. Readers learn about the development of modern psychological practice (Freud is a minor player in the story) and the barbaric techniques that preceded analysis. Finally, the tale offers a strong foreshadowing of the horrors in store for Vienna and all of Austria in the 1900s. Unfortunately, the book is not such a strong mystery. The reader is faced with a seemingly impossible crime, which concludes with (in my opinion) a wildly improbable solution. It's a bit hard to keep track of everyone; there are oodles of bit characters. And, finally, the short chapters hinder the reader from really getting into the book. Even with these flaws, however, the book is worth reading for the historical portrait of a beautiful, cultured city with a very ominous cloud on the horizon.

It's 1902, Oskar Rheinhardt is investigating the murder of the beautiful medium, Frualine Charlotte Lowenstein in Vienna, Austria. The victim has been found shot in the heart in a room locked from the inside with what appears to be a suicide note, no weapon or secret means of egress are found. Rheihardt enlists the help of his good friend, Max Lieberman, who is a doctor of psychoanalysis. The medium's regular customers become an interesting circle of suspects.

Frank Tallis has done a nice job of creating interesting characters, a likeable protagonist and realistic relationships. There is a certain charm about Herr Doctor Liebermann and that of his good friend Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt.

The story is interesting and easy enough to read. However, the writer teases the reader with very, very short chapters, each one moves us to a different location with different characters so that we never have any prolonged exposure to these characters. The author shows us a little bit of each character's internal conflict and whets the reader's curiosity. But the approach gives an unsatisfying feeling.

The mystery was interesting and the author creates some vivid images but over all I felt less than satisfied by the writing. Had Tallis focused more on the interesting characters he created and their relationships I would have enjoyed this more.

He does give us glimpses of the warm a caring friendship between Liebermann and Rheinhardt, the strained but loving relationship between Liebermann and his father, the tentative friendship with a patient and the uncertain relationship with his love interest Clara.

All the ingredients for a great novel are included in this mystery but there just isn't enough of any them to leave me wanting more or feeling satisfied by what I've read. Maybe the second in the series will be more gratifying.

It was a decent read, but I wasn't jumping up and down with excitement at any point in the book except in the first 50 pages. I thought that the characters were not fleshed out in as much detail as a book of this kind warranted, and the Sherlock Holmes type deductions made by the protagonist based on Freudian theory seemed outlandish. Good for a quick read on a flight, but forgettable.

This is not a bad yarn, but its main attraction for those who know Vienna is simply Tallis's sense of place. He skilfully weaves in elements of early 20th-century history, but the overall effect is somewhat spoiled by his sloppy orthography: far too many of the German words (place names, small talk, etc.) in this book are misspelled.