Rosa [With Earbuds] (Playaway Adult Fiction) [Preloaded Digital Audio Player]

Jonathan Rabb (Author), Simon Prebble (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2009 | Series: Playaway Adult Fiction

In the last days of the First World War, socialist revolution swept across Germany, sending Kaiser Wilhelm into exile and transforming Berlin into a battleground. But for Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner and his young assistant, Hans Fichte, the revolution is a mere inconvenience. Four women from the slums of Berlin have turned up dead, all with identical markings etched into their backs, and Hoffner and Fichte have spent the better part of six weeks trying to crack the bizarre case.Things take a troubling turn when the political police begin to show an interest in Hoffner's investigation. Hoffner has no idea why the Polpo would want to get their hands dirty with a serial murderer, until he is shown the lifeless body of Rosa Luxemburg, the same eerie markings on her back. Rumors abound that Rosa, one of the leaders of the suppressed socialist uprising, was assassinated by an angry mob, but the pattern carved into her back tells a different story.In his remarkable thriller, Jonathan Rabb paints a vivid, unforgettable picture of a city and a people poised between the chaos of the First World War and the darkness to come, a time when political thugs, petty thieves, and charismatic leaders rushed to fill the void left behind. Into this gap steps Hoffner, who, while battling his own personal demons, is still determined to find out who is preying on the women of Berlin, even as he gets drawn deeper into the mystery surrounding Rosa's death. Hoffner's search for the killer leads him on a dark and twisted journey through the battle-scarred streets of the city, where he soon discovers that nothing is as it appears. And while he finds allies in unexpected places, he is met at every turn by men who will stop at nothing to keep him from finding out the truth about Rosa.A genuine mystery at the time, Rosa's fate has continued to prompt speculation to this day. Rabb's taut political thriller imagines one strikingly real possibility. With his first two novels, The Overseer and The Book of Q, Rabb proved that he had a talent not only for writing suspenseful narratives but for illuminating the darkest corners of history as well. With Rosa, his finest work, he brings to life a world capital on the brink of chaos, a tragic revolutionary who both inspired and enraged, and a compellingly complex, world-weary, deeply flawed but brilliant inspector named Nikolai Hoffner.

--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Based on the obscure four-month-long disappearance of the corpse of Rosa Luxemburg, the "Devil Jewess" Socialist Democrat revolutionary, after her summary execution on January 15, 1919, this brooding, studiously researched fiction noir from Rabb (The Overseer; The Book of Q) imagines the maelstrom of conspiracy and political unrest in post-WWI Germany. For six dreary weeks, starting in early December, veteran Det. Insp. Nikolai Hoffner--along with Hans Fichte, an ambitious 23-year-old detective trainee--has been baffled by the corpses of middle-aged women appearing around Berlin with signature designs carved into their backs. In mid-January, Hoffner is called to see a fifth corpse in an abandoned subway station, and at the morgue, he is shown a sixth body--that of the infamous Rosa Luxemburg. Her corpse has similar markings, but there are subtle differences. These suspicious variations--coupled with the arrogant intervention of the powerful Polpo (political police), who spirit the corpse away to a morgue upstairs--launch Hoffner on a perilous, labyrinthine inquiry. Sometimes the novel's prose is rather tangled and Rabb struggles to get his story told, but subtexts of love, betrayal and a detective at war with his feelings illuminate this gothic tapestry of anti-Semitism and ethnic elitism with its foreshadowing of the Nazi era.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Rabb (author of the critically acclaimed Overseer, 1998) writes a wonderfully evocative novel about Berlin immediately after World War I. At its center is a historical mystery: Who murdered longtime revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, imprisoned throughout the war, galvanized into forming the first German Communist Party after the war, and found drowned in the Landwehr Canal in 1919? In this take on what happened, Berlin Detective-Inspector Nikolai Hoffner and his assistant, Hans Fichte, return after the war to their jobs and to a city ripped open by the ravages of war. They investigate four murders in the slums of Berlin: each woman has the same markings cut into their backs. When Rosa Luxemburg's corpse is discovered to have the same markings, the case turns political, with the German "political police" now edging in. This novel transcends the mystery genre by offering readers a glimpse into the economic and political chaos in Berlin after the war and then transcends politics by giving a pulsatingly detailed account of individual life at a particular moment in history: dress (what prostitutes wore, what police wore), food, furnishings, and street life. Casting a longtime police detective as the hero works brilliantly, since the reader shares Hoffner's shock at the changes writ large on every piece of Berlin pavement. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Preloaded Digital Audio Player
• Publisher: Playaway (September 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1615457011
• ISBN-13: 978-1615457014
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,180,795 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Murder, history, mystery written in compelling style, March 4, 2005

By 

Laurel Johnson (Kansas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rosa: A Novel (Hardcover)

Rosa was my first experience with Jonathan Rabb's work, although it is his third book. His gift for detail is unerring, which makes this complex mystery all the more appealing. Simply stated, I could not easily lay this book aside until the last page.

The place is post World War One Berlin. Rabb brings this metropolis to life with deft touches, shedding light in each dark corner, every nuance that gave Berlin its flavor at the time. Rabb doesn't simply tell the wonderful and gritty details. He takes his readers there so we can live it, experience the snow and mist, explore the scents and sounds. His skill with descriptive prose adds resonating depths his readers might not have experienced otherwise.

Detective Inspector of the Kriminal Polizei -- the Kripo -- Nikolei Hoffner, is in pursuit of a serial killer whose madness borders on genius. Hoffner and his assistant, Hans Fichte, methodically follow every small clue, groping in the dark, until they find Rosa's body. Rosa Luxemburg is a socialist revolutionary and enemy of the Reichstadt. Hoffner knows immediately that, as a victim, she is out of place. That initial thought draws Hoffner and Fichte into a provocative conspiracy involving the Political Police, the black market, secret Aryan societies, and scientific developments overseen by a young Albert Einstein.

Nikolei Hoffner is a magnificent character, a troubled and brilliant man who seeks the truth with dogged determination. We walk in Hoffner's shoes as he dissects cryptic clues and searches Berlin's underbelly for his killer. The truths he uncovers and losses he experiences are horrible, beyond even his comprehension.

Rabb totally immerses readers in place and time and his character development is brilliant. We experience what Hoffner sees and feels, even his despair and impotence. And we witness the horrifying stirrings of anti Semitism, glimpse the spectre that will be Nazi Germany.

Jonathan Rabb blends history with fiction in Rosa with exciting results. Rosa Luxemburg was real, as were many characters from that time. Her murder and disappearance of her body were never solved in real life. This book is one possible explanation. For lovers of mystery, suspense, and history, Rosa is a must have, must read.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Post WWI Berlin, Rosa, Revolution & A Thrilling Mystery!!, May 14, 2005

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rosa: A Novel (Hardcover)

Berlin in January 1919 was bitterly cold and damp. The Great War was over and Germany was in the throes of defeat, its citizens impoverished, with ersatz everything for sale and no money to purchase anything. The gallant young men who had marched off to fight for God, Kaiser and Fatherland a mere five years before, were dead, maimed and/or disillusioned, bitter and unemployed. A generation of young women would never marry, their potential spouses buried beneath the winter snow. When the Kaiser abdicated, Fredrich Ebert, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, established the Weimar Government in time to sign the humiliating Treaty of Versailles, which forced Germany to pay billions in gold marks - reparation money it did not have. Inflation was rampant.

Tremendous fear of communism permeated the country. Many thought that Russia's Bolshevik Revolution would spread across the border, so most Germans were content to turn a blind eye to the loss of certain liberties, constitutional rights, and accepted the "strong-arm tactics" which prevailed against anyone who threatened the country's stability. The "Spartacus League," (Spartakusbund), German communists named after the slave who lead a rebellion against the Romans, was founded by Rosa Luxemburg, during WWI to counter the German Social Democrats' support of the war. Luxemburg, a Marxist politician, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary, along with her colleague, Karl Liebknicht, challenged Reichschancellor Ebert's government, as did the far right-wing Free Corps (Freikorps). Miss Luxemburg's failure to organize a coherent political opposition to the Social Democratic leadership proved fatal both to the outcome of the German revolution and to her own life. The state forces reasserted control and crushed the rebellion, brutally murdering Rosa, Karl Liebnecht and many other Party members, sympathizers and workers.

Although Rosa, called the "Devil Jewess" by her enemies, was assassinated on January 15th, 1919, her body was not discovered until five months later. The mystery of her corpse's location during that winter and early spring has never been solved. Jonathan Rabb proposes a credible solution in his penetrating historical mystery, "Rosa." The author's extensive research on life in post-WWI Germany enriches this fascinating novel tremendously.

Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, and his young assistant Hans Fichte, find themselves at the center of Berlin's revolutionary violence. Their offices at Kriminalpolizei, (Kripo), Headquarters are right on Alexanderplatz, at the center of the chaotic uprising. The social upheaval and subsequent battles provide but a momentary distraction for the two detectives, however. A vicious serial murderer is on the loose in Berlin, and their attention is intensely focused on the case. Four middle-aged women have turned up dead, all mutilated with identical, intricate markings etched into their backs. Hoffner and Fichte have spent almost six weeks trying to solve the bizarre crime. When the political police (Polpo) intervene, veteran cop Hoffner is disturbed and angry. Why would they be interested in a serial murderer? A fifth body is discovered - the MO is the same. Later that day, at the morgue, honchos from Polpo reveal yet another lifeless body, number six - this one is Rosa Luxemburg. She has the same marks carved into her back as the others. If Miss Luxemburg had been assassinated by the authorities, as rumored, or been killed by an angry mob, also rumored, then why and how did she receive the specific signature of the serial killer? No one, other than the police, knew of the killer's existence, nor about any of the clues at the crime scenes. The revolution had been front page news for weeks. And the Kripo was certainly not looking to enlighten the public about a mass murderer and their failure to catch him.

The Polpo take possession of Luxemburg's body and refuse to release it. As Hoffner conducts a labyrinthine criminal investigation, suspense heightens as startling discoveries are made - in Berlin, Munich and Belgium. In the process a wide cast of compelling secondary characters are introduced, including a Jewish expert in lace making, Oliver Twist-like errand boys who work for the highest bidder, a charismatic pilot, Leo Jogisches, a former lover and colleague of Rosa's, Albert Einstein, Dietrich Eckart (Hitler's mentor), and artist Kathe Kollwitz. The Polpo goons are always a step behind or just ahead of Hoffner. In spite of continual warnings to ignore their machinations, the Detective Inspector persists on his own course. Subplots of love, betrayal, anti-Semitism, secret societies and the political foreshadowing of Nazism make for a riveting read.

Nikolai Hofner is a superb multi-faceted character. He is a consummate professional, a brilliant detective, with a tremendous sense of irony, driven to discover everyone involved in this most complex of cases. He will not be deterred. A man with a past, a flawed yet courageous individual, Nikolai develops feelings of compassion and admiration for Rosa Luxemburg, as he begins to know her through her papers and his investigation. He also demonstrates fairness and sympathy for his partner's weaknesses. However, he is unable to show his wife and sons the love he feels for them.

This is a fantastic novel noir set in an extraordinary place and time in history. The narrative is fast paced and well written, filled with period detail. The mystery at the book's core is a real one and the author's solution is creative, believable and thrilling in its implications. I highly recommend "Rosa."
JANA

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Read, July 3, 2005

By 

M. Richter (London, England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rosa: A Novel (Hardcover)

One of the best novels I've read in a long time. Great story, great characters, great writing. I felt as if I were literally transformed back to 1919 Berlin. The entire plot was so compelling, fast-paced, original. The author obviously did his homework -- I believed all of his possible historical scenarios could have actually taken place as opposed to that Da Vinci garbage which was just ridiculous and kept taking me out of the story. You feel Rabb's expertise on every page. I hope he does a sequel -- I'd love to watch Hoffner crack another fascinating mystery.