From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Set in 1931 Berlin, Cantrell's scrupulously researched debut tolls a somber dirge for Weimar Germany in its last days. In the Hall of the Unnamed Dead, Hannah Vogel, a 32-year-old crime reporter for the
Berliner Tageblatt, recognizes a photograph of a naked corpse on a riverbank as that of her beloved brother, Ernst, an unabashedly gay transvestite cabaret singer. In her search for Ernst's killer, Hannah uncovers his sexual connections reach from newly recruited young Nazis to the highest levels of the Nazi party. Hannah and Anton, a five-year-old waif who claims Ernst was his father, along with her tender lover, Boris, tread an ominous tightrope as Cantrell unveils the best and the worst of the German character, setting the humanity of decent Germans, Jews and gentiles alike, against the Nazis' raw savagery and mindless militarism. This unforgettable novel, which can be as painful to read as the history it foreshadows, builds to an appropriately bittersweet ending.
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It’s 1931 in Berlin, and though the Weimar Republic has begun to crumble, the celebrated decadence of the era remains in full flower. Hannah Vogel is a crime reporter, on intimate terms with Berlin’s underbelly, but that doesn’t protect her from the shock of seeing her brother’s picture posted in the police department’s Hall of the Unnamed Dead. She’s reluctant to make a formal identification until she knows what happened to him; scandal may lurk behind his death, as Ernst was a cross-dressing cabaret star whose list of male lovers included at least one Nazi leader. There’s also the matter of the orphan girl who turns up on Hannah’s doorstep, claiming that Ernst is her father and Hannah her mother! Hannah follows Ernst’s trail where most commonsensical Germans know not to go—deep into the Nazi power structure, where alternative sexual behavior is pursued with gusto, despite the soon-to-be führer’s disapproval. Cantrell nails both the “life is a cabaret” atmosphere and the desperation floating inside the champagne bubbles, though her attempts to show us Hannah’s inner thoughts suggest first-novelist clumsiness. Still, a promising debut. --Bill Ott
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