I really like the unique formatting of her books.

Like Murder Farm, there's all these different perspectives and voices, and the way they unfold the story is something to behold!

Also, this book is right creepy!

Yikes

I liked the way the story was brought up. When the chapters intertwined between the two plot lines and it creeped me out (which i guess was the goal).

I just hadn't realized it would be so graphic and violent with the women getting attacked and killed..

Really poor plot. I'm totally disappointed.

Munich in the 1930s. The times are hard for young women, nevertheless Kathie decides to leave her small village and to find a job in the close-by town and to live the life of the established and fashionable ladies she has seen when travelling there with her mother. She finds a place with a friend for a couple of days but is reluctant to really care for a job. Why not look out for a man to support her? While we follow Kathie’s first steps in Munich, the police interrogate Kalteis and witnesses report the last hours of many young girls who all were abused and then killed.

Andrea Maria Schenkel again, after the incredible success of “Tannöd”, basis her novel on real facts taken from police records. Just like in her first novel, she narrates the story not in chronological order – this time she even starts with the execution of the culprit – but in a tessellated ways where different characters report their memories in alteration with the protagonist’s story. It takes some time until the reader find his/her way into the novel. Too many characters and stories are interwoven and this makes it difficult to sort them out. The style fits quite well the characters, most of them having a Bavarian peasant background and thus using a rather plain and direct way of speaking. Also Kathie’s naivety is portrayed in a convincing way. Quite well chosen is the English title, which translates directly from the German original but adding the new aspect of the cold murder.

Nevertheless, the story lacks suspense and a character development. It lives from the eclectic way of telling the tale, but this is not enough to make a great novel.

3.5

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley
Andrea Maria Schenkel is Germany’s answer to Britain’s Ruth Rendell.

Can I end the review now, I mean what more do you need to know?

Schenkel’s novel deals with a sexual murderer during the late Weimer period. (If you have read Maria Tatar’s Lustmord, you should check this book out). Told in a variety of voices, the book is as compelling as Rendell at her best.

At one level the book is a psychological study of a killer, at another level it is a study of a girl wanting more, and at a third level it is a look at those who are either killed or those who are left behind. The reader is placed in the position of listening investigator. While at the beginning, it almost seems too multi-perspective but as the reader gets use to the format, as the format evens out, whichever it is becomes the only way to tell this story.

And it is grippingly told.

Schenkel aptly deals with the differing perspectives without making any one character too much of a dislikable idiot or too much an unbelievable stellar of perfection. The only change to the pattern is the reader’s interaction with the murderer. With that character Schenkel walks the fine line of presenting the character while not justifying his behavior. She walks this line very well, and the passages of the book involving this character work.

It’s not your average murder mystery that’s for show.

WARNING this book is really upsetting. there are multiple explicit and detailed scenes depicting women being abused and murdered. i read true crime/mystery novels all of the time but this book was too much for me. not for the faint of heart, this book is brutal.