first class

excellent mixture of crime and politics set in a a very mixed up period of history

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Ripping Entertainment.

Taking you further back into the 1920's Germany and crime. A great first story of this up and coming Detective Inspector. A growing love story too. Full of action and grim crime. Enjoy.

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Confusing delivery of a good story.

I bought this book having seen the exceptionally good German TV production of the same name. Their attention to detail and historical accuracy was way up there with the very best albeit the story differed from the book slightly. My confusion really is with the ability of the books author to capture the environment of 1920's Berlin, or not as it happens. The story is a good one, most of the characters are well crafted and the period is fascinating particularly from a German perspective however its written in an American style modern procedural detective style complete with forensic departments and paramedics none of which existed at that time, indeed the entire narrative was littered with this type of misnomer.

All in all lazy research spoilt what should have been a particularly good book.

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2 people found this helpful

Dreadful accents …

I enjoyed the story but really disliked the narration, The strong English regional accents means that the atmosphere of Berlin post WW1 is completely lost. I think I’ll try the second book in Kindle to see if I can “take to” Gereon Rath a bit more .

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long winded

too many pointless location addresses given, no point to the location unless you're interested in 1929 Berlin

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A great story

Enjoyed this but some of the names were hard to follow.
Narrator is excellent.
I have watched the TV series based on this and there are differences but both have their charm.

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Complex tale.

Mark Meadows narrates the lengthy book with great aplomb. The writing is excellent, as is the story, but you really need to pay attention as the story is labyrinthine in scope, made all the more complex by the lengthy list of German and Russian characters, and the names of the German streets. The book has made me want to watch its namesake German series.

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Atmospheric, yet predictable, police procedural

I found this book to be very enjoyable but not genuinely gripping.

The atmosphere of 1920's Berlin comes through strongly which is just as well because the plot and characters are not particularly memorable.

The characters are the usual police procedural line up: lonely male with troubled past; senior officer showing him how to bend the rules; politically minded police chiefs; independent and very gorgeous young woman ; pseudo-sophisticated crime lord . . . I felt it was only the historical context which lifted the book. The Nazis, the communists and the ravers prowling the city were the most enjoyable parts of the book.

Narration is excellent and I will probably go on to explore the series.

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1 person found this helpful

Evocative Crime Story Set in a Berlin Recovering from one ear just before another.

Easy to see why this has made it to TV. Good characters, excellent story line overlayed with a evocative historical backdrop.
Some elements of the storyline are weaker than others with slow passages and some predictability. However generally the narrative moves along quickly and with style.
Well worth a listen!

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Informative novel

A great story between the war years in Germany .
Telling us how things were and why the nazis came to power

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