Gruesome.

Whilst ICE COLD is the second book from German writer Andrea Maria Schenkel, it's the first book - THE MURDER FARM - that I have to start out mentioning. I still remember my reaction to that book - mesmerised, enthralled, vaguely stunned. Needless to say, trying not to set expectations for ICE COLD was a tricky undertaking.

Set in 1930's Munich, ICE COLD is the progression of a rapist serial killer. Various viewpoints are told chapter by chapter, each voice eerily intimate, and personal, distinguished by a change in font to give the reader a visual queue, as well as a clear change in voice. The killer moves aimlessly, passively through a life punctuated suddenly by extreme violence and depravity. ICE COLD tells a story that is brutal, hopeless, stark, bleak and extremely discomforting. It's dark, intense and extremely uncomfortable reading. It's also jarringly different in that there is no discernible plot, heading for a resolution or at the least, an explanation. This is a series of short, sharp punches to the readers sensibility, finalising in no resolution, no closure, no analysis, no neat ends and no explanations.

There are a lot of similarities to THE MURDER FARM, in the style, the structure and the tone of ICE COLD. But there's something much bleaker and more confrontational about ICE COLD. Just in case it sounds like this is a book that I hated, exactly the opposite is true. It's short, sharp, tight as hell, uncomfortable, strange, brutal, and extremely memorable.

Germany in the 1930's: not much work and there's a serial killer and rapist around Munich. Several young girls have been attacked, but now the police have a suspect in custody.

Told in different voices, it's a strange story of violence, sex and people that just drift around, without much aim in life.
The characters: Josef Kalteis, who tells his story to the police in a cold way (as cold as his name, as Kalteis means Ice Cold), accepting what he has done, but not acknowledging anything wrong in his actions.
And some of the girls: Young Kathie who leaves her boring village for Munich, in hope of making her way in life and slowly falls into prostitution. Kuni, who was going to Munich to visit her sisters. Erna, about to get married. Marlis, attacked on her way to the beach.

This is a very dark book, as you expect something awful to happen to the girls described, and it does.
Even though I'm a big crime & thriller reader, I found this book very disquieting, too harsh. I also find the style complicated. Maybe it was the translation, but I struggled and sometimes found the different voices confusing.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Reading Rush 2020: read a book completely outside of your house ☑

An intriguing mystery full of gruesome details and horrifying end results.

”Keep on looking at yourself in the mirror like that and one day the Devil himself will look back at you.”
“How can the Devil look back at me out of the mirror?” Kathie asked.

I actually really enjoyed the nonlinearity of this story! It’s told through a series of eyewitness accounts, interview transcripts, and long-form scenes following Kathie, the protagonist. It made the mystery more engaging with the constant worry about which of these men could be the killer. It really plays on depicting a woman’s worst nightmare of a stalker with malicious intent. I think this book scared me more than it would a man reading it, to be honest. Because stuff like this (though not as extreme) is still a potential reality.

My one major complaint with this novel is its lack of content warnings. I, luckily, don’t have much issue but I still would have appreciated a page labelling what would be depicted. So, for anyone looking to read this, content warnings for physical abuse, sexual assault, rape, murder (highly detailed), body horror, the description of animal slaughter, and probably a few other things I’m forgetting. It’s definitely more of a shocking book than a thriller and some might say it was even gratuitously violent. However I know some people seek out that kind of literature so! That’s that. Fair warning.

The ending, in my opinion, felt a little lackluster. It just didn’t feel like it fit fully with the intense mystery of the main portion of this story. I found myself closing the book with a bittersweet “I don’t know what else I expected” feeling.

This isn’t all to say I thought this book was bad, I still enjoyed the mystery and following the unique style. I’d be willing to read something by Schenkel again at some point! For the length this is, if you’re interested, I’d still recommend it to you because German translated works are fascinating!

Las sich sehr schnell, war eigentlich auch gut geschrieben, aber bei mir wollte der Funken einfach nicht überspringen.
Ich denke, mit all diesen Hintergrundfakten hätte man aus dem Stoff doch etwas mehr rausholen können.
Es war gut, aber irgendwie... zu distanziert...

I am very dissatisfied with this book, especially as it had a good premise and opening. In this opening, we read a report and narrative of the execution of Kalteis, a violent criminal in late 1930s Berlin. As such, it showed technical skill in flicking between two different voices, a skill showcased in the rest of the book, which contains many passages of police reports, interrogations, witness statements, straight narrative etc. These were woven together very neatly and skillfully, but after a while the constant flicking from one voice to another is trying, and emphasises that this book is style over substance, as the different accounts never really lead us anywhere.



SLIGHT SPOILERS BELOW

I use 'spoilers' in the loosest sense, as what did we learn from this book. In the end, Kalteis confesses to the crimes we have seen him commit and which are the reason for his execution at the start of the book. The crimes described are quite horrible, but, again, to what end? I was expecting this to be some sort of parallel to the rise of the Nazis, but they are barely mentioned. By the end of the book, we just know that Kalteis is violent, as we already knew, but nothing of the causes or background to his crimes. Plot was almost none existent- even Kathy's story seemed irrelevant in the end, because she was sidelined so often by the other victims' stories. What was the point? It all seemed rather gratuitous.