Customer Reviews

The Informer: A Novel

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In 1930 Berlin Police Department Serious Crimes Section Homicide Investigator Armina Treffen is the best cop at catching serial killers. Her current case involves brutal strangulation of women whose battered bodies are dumped in the Tiergarten.

Treffen knows she needs insider help so turns to twenty-two year old hooker Gaelle, who is warned by her teen pomp Felix to stay away from the cop. While Treffen seemingly fails to recruit Gaelle to be her eyes and ears on the streets, Bruno Hauptmann hires Gaelle as a personal informant to inform him of any information she picks up from her Johns. Soon the three pulls on Gaelle will collide with the serial killer being the force behind the crash.

The Informer is more a historical thriller than a German police procedural as Craig Nova provides a powerful look at Depression Era Weimar Republic through a focus on the cast. Gaelle steals the show from the cop, the pimp, the killer and the client with her distrust of all. Insight into her psyche makes for a fabulous dark tale as readers obtain a deep look into a prostitute at a time when economically depressed Germany is in transition with no options except the street for Gaelle.

Harriet Klausner

Craig Nova's latest novel, THE INFORMER, will have you on tenterhooks. The place is Berlin in 1930, where Germany's decaying Weimar Republic is crumbling so fast that remnants of its flag find use as tablecloths. Both the Reds and their opposition, the Brown Shirts, will stop at nothing to grab power when the government fails. In the underbelly of the city there exists a fermenting mixture of spies, assassins, seasoned criminals and the usual assortment of sewer rats. It is a society foundering in brutality and depravity.

Police Investigator Armina Treffen is less preoccupied with politics at the moment than with tracking a serial killer who preys on young women. Though a miasma of corruption continually attempts to stifle her progress, she casts a wide net which brings her to Gaelle, a scarred prostitute whose burns have cauterized her emotions as well as disfiguring her face.

Galle is desperate for some kind of protection other than the lame hooligan who acts as her pimp. Her search for security leads her to all the wrong places and makes her a target for murder. Who will reach her first, the political executioners, the serial murderer or the authorities?

The author is a master at evoking the sense of disintegration that permeates the daily life of the city. Thanks to his superb writing, the reader smells the city's damp streets, dreads its shadows and knows the weight of its impending fate.

Fans of Alan Furst and Stieg Larsson will greet this book with pleasure.

The Informer is a thrilling and engaging novel in the tradition of Graham Greene and Alan Furst. With taut prose and a dark plot, Nova sets two characters - the scarred yet appealing prostitute, Gaelle, and the police inspector, Armina, on a collision course amid the backdrop of 1930s Berlin.

Nova masterfully develops in The Informer the intrigue and suspense that you expect from the best literary thrillers. Fans of Furst's spy novels as well as detective thrillers from the likes of Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Henning Mankell (the Kurt Wallender mysteries), Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjowall (The Laughing Policeman) will feel right at home reading The Informer. Highly recommended.

For the past decade, writer sui generis Craig Nova -- author of "The Good Son," "Tornado Alley" and "The Universal Donor" -- has been working with various ghosts of literature past: "The Universal Donor" found him channeling Nathanael West and a bit of Robin Cook; in "Wetware" it was the spirits of Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick; and "Cruisers" found the author possessed by the likes of James M. Cain and, improbably, Leo Tolstoy. Nova's latest, "The Informer," is visited by only one literary ghost: Graham Greene.

As with all good novels, the plot of Nova's latest is both simple and complicated. Set during the waning years of the Weimar Republic, "The Informer" traces the paths of three people: Detective Armina Treffen (one of the few women working in the serious crimes department), a 22-year-old prostitute named Galle and her 16-year-old pimp and protector, Felix. Galle is a "gravelstone," a woman who has a physical disfigurement which makes her twice as appealing to customers (the scars on Galle's face come from a childhood car accident). One of Galle's customers is the mysterious Mr. Hauptmann (who has obvious political connections), who wants to pay her to pass along information gleaned from various liaisons. Of course, Felix and Galle recognize a financial opportunity (no matter how dangerous) and play it for all its worth, selling information to mysterious political figures (Nazis or Communists), to police officers and anyone else offering cold hard cash. Meanwhile, Armina has become personally invested in her investigation of the serial murders of prostitutes in Berlin. She stays on the case, following clues, heading down blind and dark alleys, for over a decade.

Those in search of satisfying suspense and mystery will find it in "The Informer"; just as importantly, they will find a depiction of a society at loose ends, and a populace that no longer feels in control of their own lives. In the 1930s-era Germany, gangs (the Immertreu) roam the streets; most people are obsessed with superficialities, like having the perfect body; many political types have access to airwaves and media, spouting their beliefs, telling others what to think; and there is a fascination with crime and the violence it begets, with reenactments taking place in Cabarets. Anyone paying attention in today's American society (gang wars, murders, TV shows like "CSI," media outlets like Fox News, radio pundits such as Rush Limbaugh) might find this all uncomfortably familiar. Especially when "The Informer" moves from pre-war Germany to post-war Germany, and the devastation brought about by an ill-conceived war drives thematic points (intended or not) straight home. Although he might have been inspired by the ghosts of literature past in recent years, with "The Informer" Craig Nova proves -- once again, and brilliantly so -- that his writing can be just as moving, just as entertaining and insightful, and just as haunting as that of the finest writers in anyone's literary canon.

An absolutely brilliant novel! Craig Nova should be nominated for a Pultizer Prize for this astounding work of art! Not since Albert Camus have I ever read such a fantastic piece of literature. Craig Nova's writing is as good as it gets. He is right up there with the likes of Henry Porter ("The Bell Ringer"), David Benioff ("City of Thieves") and Brian Haig (The Hunted). His book would make a great movie!

The Informer by Craig Nova puts yet another notch on the belt of an author with an already stellar body of work that so many people have not yet been fortunate enough to discover. Currently, I am reading The Congressman's Daughter and recently, I finished his most recent novel before The Informer -- Cruisers -- and I can't help but be simultaneously addicted to the elegant restraint of his prose and the raw power with which he delves into the human soul.

In The Informer, Nova takes readers to Berlin in 1930 -- where politics are becoming increasingly polarized, the economy is in shambles, and information is constantly manipulated and distorted for individuals and groups to leverage power against one another (sound like the state of affairs in the U.S. today?)

The plot follows Armina, one of the few women working in Inspectorate A, the serious crimes division of the Berlin police department, as she traverses the dark underbelly of the city, confronting its bizarre inhabitants. As Armina investigates, she encounters Gaelle, a young prostitute with a scarred face and alluring eroticism that allows her to slip in and out of the lives of politically connected men--many corrupt, some sinister, all looking for power, money, and sex. Gaelle and her partner Felix, a boy hustler with a lame foot, know the value of a secret, and also its price, in the depraved, cosmopolitan city.

With the discovery of each new body, Armina identifies more closely with the murders, almost as if she is losing a part of herself with each crime. As she edges closer to the dangerous truth, the lines between true and false, friend and enemy, and good and evil begin to blur.

The Informer is at once startling and poignant. The characters invite you to wonder in the abysses of their souls. The setting is eerily reminiscent of that in which we live today. This book is one not to miss.

"The Informer" is a taut noirish novel of suspense set in Weimar Berlin. The dark year is 1930. The prostitute Gaelle is working her trade in the parks and boulevards of Berlin. Gaelle has a huge scar across her face as a result of a terrible automobile accident. Her pimp is a teenager named Felix. Felix has a limp and is a grotesque figure of Nova's imagination. Gaelle becomes involved in a murder due to the political struggle between the Nazis and their enemies the Red Guard Communists. Armina Treffen is a police officer who is investigating gruesome serial murders of prostitutes. Lyrical chapters deal with Armina's love for a young botanist named Rainer. Their love story is all light contrasting nicely with the darkness and nightime horrors all around them.
This short novel has interesting characters; a good plot and an atmospheric portrait of a Germany on the brink of the abyss of hell. The plot twists are surprising keeping the reader guessing and flipping all 306 pages until the satisfying ending.
Craig Nova who teaches at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro is to be complimented on this fine novel!

Craig Nova's book "The Informer" is no where up their with the top books about Berlin before and after WWII. It seems to be a rambling of cliches around the current world and various environments that completely distract from the plot. It is a good plot, but a very weak development and followup on it. I doubt that Craig has spent much time in Berlin and even less in studying the history of the 1930s there. What could have been a great noir mystery is a frustrating read. He no way compares to Alan Furst, Phillip Kerr, Len Deighton or John Le Carre. I don't know who reviews his novels and gives great statements. I do notice, that Craig Nova has never won any major recognition from the Literary or Mystery rewards.

Craig Nova in an interview says he was tempted to place this quote in the front of his novel 'Informer'. I will do it for him, after all this is the center of this novel.

"A comment by a twelve year old boy, Cassius Niyonsaba, who had survived a slaughter outside a church. He said, "I saw how savagery can replace kindness in the heart of a man...."

Craig Nova was inspired by Graham Greene in his writing, and I can see a little bit of that in this extraordinary novel. He has developed a plot beyond ordinary- murders and mayhem in the 1930's in Berlin. Suspense-who is killing all the young prostitutes in the park and leaving such identifying marks. Curiosity-the Browns, the Communists, the Nazis and those in-between, how do they co-exist and how to maintain law and order in this atmosphere. An atmosphere where the members of the police department are split between all of the political bases, and those with power rule the roost. Craig Nova says that he was thinking about George Orwell when he started this novel. Orwell discovered that people don't look at the facts and then make up their minds. Instead, they make up their minds and then look for facts to support what they already believe. Is that recognizable? This novel taking place in Berlin in 1930 is a lot like the modern age. Craig Nova believes, "Well, first a citizen of Berlin at this time could easily think that things had gone somehow terribly wrong and that no one really knew what to do. Or, worse, there were groups, rigid, doctrinaire groups, that wanted to convince people (and to intrigue in such a way as to make people believe) that they knew what the problem was. Turn on a talk radio station some time, in the modern age, and listen for awhile. You will see what I mean. And in the Weimar Republic, people had an intense fascination with the body, as they do today. And, a fascination with sport And along with these two, a belief in an elite, in people who, by their appearance, but their abilities of one kind or another were somehow in a group that existed above ordinary human beings. They were, I guess, celebrities. And, of course, celebrity was another item. And, finally a fascination with violence and horrible crimes." This may be difficult to hear, but take it in, slowly as you read.

The characters are true and so well drawn that we can see them in our mind's eye. Armina Treffen, is a woman in the police force. In the Weimar era women were taking jobs outside the home, and that era was fairly progressive. However, Armina was relegated to the crimes of women, mainly rape. But, Armina, as we come to know is attached to humanity and thinks her job is to stop the violence she sees. Gaelle, a young woman of 22, in this time, a woman who had a deformity of some kind but who was erotically appealing and usually a prostitute was known as a Gravelstone. Ritter, a policeman who has leanings toward the Nazis. Felix, the young boy, with a hump and a limp, and someone who is out for himself. And, the other characters caught in the middle or on one side or the other. All have emotions and feelings, and we are privy to some of them. The characters maintain the suspense and curiosity. We feel sorrow and love and pity and disgust, just as these characters lead us through the story.

This is an engaging novel that sweeps us up into the 1930's and the atmosphere of Berlin and Moscow. Tragedies and families and good times and bad ensue, but there is hope that those in-between will win in the end.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 03-30-10

The Good Son: A Novel

Cruisers: A Novel

I loved this book and just read this wonderful interview that John Irving did with the author, Craig Nova, on the Daily Beast: [..]

This is a must read--for anyone who enjoys Alan Furst, this is the book to read now.