The Eye of the Abyss (Franz Schmidt, 1) [Hardcover]

Marshall Browne (Author)

Book Description

Series: Franz Schmidt, 1 | Publication Date: October 1, 2003

It is Germany, 1938, and Franz Schmidt is the chief auditor in a commercial bank in a provincial city. But as Schmidt will soon learn, the bank's prestigious new client, the Nazi party, is at once its least desirable. Schmidt will oversee their account, and soon, he is embroiled in the duplicity, violence and horror that is Nazi Germany. Schmidt can't help but be involved, and the first victim of the harsh realities of the Germans' politics is a Jewish secretary whom Franz tries to help, much to his wife's distress.

As Schmidt finds himself caught up in dangerous political machinations, he also finds himself, as the result of an act of compassion, under deadly suspicion. The Schmidts struggle to protect their marriage and their family without compromising their sense of decency, but eventually, Franz's world explodes. As events spin out of control, Franz must act, and he seeks revenge on those responsible by attempting a massive fraud on the Party itself.

In Eye of the Abyss, Marshall Browne crafts an intelligent historical thriller reminiscent of Philip Kerr, Christopher Reich and Alan Furst with a riveting pace and spellbinding plot all his own.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Aussie-based Browne takes a break from his highly praised series about a one-legged European police detective, Inspector Anders, to start what one hopes will be another series, about a one-eyed German banker secretly fighting the Nazis. Franz Schmidt, chief auditor for a family-owned bank in an unnamed south German city, loses his eye defending a Jew attacked by Nazi thugs in 1935. A quiet and meticulous man, he apparently bears no grudges, though his wife and best friend aren't so sure. Three years later, when his bank is chosen as a repository for large amounts of Nazi Party cash, the other shoe drops, and Schmidt becomes a man of action. First, he takes great risks trying to help a female bank employee whose mother was Jewish. Then he dreams up a plan to punish Dietrich, the sleek and seductive party operative placed inside the bank. As he did in his two other books (Inspector Anders and the Ship of Fools and The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders), Browne quickly creates a dark and convincingly Kafkaesque landscape, filled with people whose strengths and weaknesses radiate credibility. Dietrich and another top Nazi, von Streck, are frighteningly vivid, as are the endangered woman, her police inspector father, Schmidt's determined wife and his fragile friend. And Schmidt himself has our complete attention from the beginning, as he and we look for some possible light in the gathering storm of Nazi oppression. Readers who enjoy the WWII mysteries of Alan Furst, J. Robert Janes and Philip Kerr should especially savor this fine book.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

After a pair of diverting Euro-mysteries, Browne offers this superlatively chilling historical thriller. It is autumn 1938, the eve of Kristallnacht, and the German banking firm of Wertheim & Co. has just landed a prestigious new client: the Nazi Party. Herr Dietrich, an enthusiastic Aryan, is taken on as an assistant director, the better to monitor the brisk influx of "donations," and to cleanse the staff gene pool of Frau Dressler, a half-Jewish executive secretary. At the axis of this grim reckoning is staid bank auditor Franz Schmidt, a direct descendant of J. S. Bach and a Teutonic blueblood who lost an eye some years past in a scuffle with brownshirts. Struggling to shake off his disbelief at the enormity of a hopeful nation going incrementally mad, Schmidt now finds himself forced to choose between damnable acquiescence and decisive (but possibly deadly) action. Browne wrings exquisite tension from each subtly realized glance, thought, and hesitation, and his plot twists captivate without straining for effect, resulting in an elegant and thoroughly credible atmospheric thriller with more impact and psychological depth than the cinematic romanticism of genre-leader Alan Furst. David Wright
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1st edition (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312311567
• ISBN-13: 978-0312311568
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,883,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars exhilarating historical tale, November 21, 2003

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Eye of the Abyss (Franz Schmidt, 1) (Hardcover)

In 1938 Nazi Germany Franz Schmidt has a good life. He is happily married to Helga and they have a delightful four year old daughter. He works as the chief internal auditor at Banhaus Wertham & Co. where he is very highly regarded by the Werthan family that owns the bank. Franz feels pretty good about himself also since he stepped in to defend a Jew attacked by Nazis three years ago at the cost of an eye though he swears he holds no grudges against the Nazis.

Franz's life changes when the Nazi Party deposits large sums of cash at Banhaus Wertham & Co. with the demand that anyone with the slightest Jewish blood be fired as the law states. Half-Jewish Fraulein Dressler, competent secretary to the bank's general director, will have to be released. Upset over the injustice, Franz decides to help Dressler while plotting to castigate Herr Dietrich, the Nazi mole just put inside the bank. Though the price of being caught could reach his beloved family, inactivity would cost Franz much more.

This is an exhilarating historical tale that takes the reader back to a highly volatile and dangerous time to be a freedom lover. The story line is fantastic as it moves rather quickly forward yet provides fully developed characters whose behavior especially reactions during crisis are brilliantly rendered. However, the key to Marshall Browne's tale is Nazi Germany on the brink of World War II that comes so alive. Author of the well written police Inspector Anders tales Mr. Browne's latest work will be on everyone's short list for the genre's best novel of the year.

Harriet Klausner

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tense test of character in Nazi Germany, November 12, 2003

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Eye of the Abyss (Franz Schmidt, 1) (Hardcover)

In the foreboding atmosphere of 1938 Germany, Franz Schmidt is a quiet, contented family man, proud of his Teutonic heritage, and chief auditor at Wertheim's, a venerable commercial bank that has just landed a major Nazi Party account. He's also a man who lost an eye three years earlier defending a Jew.

As in Australian author Browne's Italian Inspector Anders novels ("Inspector Anders and the Ship of Fools," "The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders") the pace is deliberate, the protagonist deliberating. The tension builds by increments as the enormity of the bank's move into Nazi business becomes clear to the hapless bankers.

Nazi functionary Dietrich, attached to the bank, quickly homes in on Lilli Dressler, the director's Jewish secretary. As Jews have been barred from banking, Dietrich arranges to have the Gestapo arrest her. Schmidt and Lilli's boss separately attempt to save her, and when their illegal efforts fail, Dietrich is exultant. Magnanimously sparing the men from prosecution, Dietrich has them where he wants them.

In chilling increments it becomes clear that every aspect of privacy - from phone lines to family relationships, personal friendships and private histories - is compromised. Dietrich seems omnipresent. Heartsick, Schmidt's resolution hardens into a daring plan of heroism and revenge.

Browne has captured the Nazis' fanatical mania for control, their mastery of detail and intimidation, their paranoia and arrogance. Schmidt's complexities reveal a tangle of motivations, not all of which he understands, or admires in himself. Events build, from the first slow tightening of the noose to a choking breathlessness. A masterful thriller, as intelligent as it is dark.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Frightening, 1938 Germany Parallels 2010 USA, August 30, 2010

By 

R. A. Barricklow "Scaramouche" (Las Vegas NV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Eye of the Abyss (Franz Schmidt, 1) (Hardcover)

Writing a novel is like a document of consciousnes, and since conscious today USA, is not like the conscious of Germany's Weimar Republic of 1938, can we have a truly realistic novel of the times? Unfortunately, today USA is very much like the early Weimar Republic. The Reichstag Fire is like September 11th. The laws of The Patriot Act are like the laws & practices being implemented in Hitler's early Germany for their Homeland Security. Their special channel(s) is a phrase not only becomming familiar with the Herr Franz Schmidt of 1938, but those today familiar with the official lies leading the USA into Iraq & Afghanistan.
Still, the above is all but background to the real story being told: THE STEALING FROM THE BANKS BY THE NAZI PARTY.
I couldn't help but think, as I was reading this novel, about the crooked members of the Republican Party of Bush(Savings & Loan, the elder/Treasury, the younger) and the subsequent crooks of the Obama Democratic Party(Larry Summers, Henry Paulson, etc.).
In the novel there are a few good people who try to put the criminal Nazis at task & at each others throats, to foil some of their vast looting enterprises. I'd like to think their are some Franz Schmidts today in our mists, working to bring current criminals, not only to light, but to jail. So far, we've bailed out the crooks & given them billions of dollars in bonuses.
At least in 1938, a few of the criminal came to their judgement day.
So, in short, reading this novel was like reading a parallel 1938/2010 looting extravaganza(imagination?).
One story has been told, the looting of the Weimar Republic of Germany.
Still, I can't wait for the parallel/other to end.
Either they will stop stealing & looting, or like Russia, an end...?

P.S. google: Keiser Report 68: Aug 12, 2010