Goldstein: A Gereon Rath Mystery

Description:

The Basis for the International TV Sensation Babylon Berlin
One of CrimeReads's Favorite Crime Books of the Year (Selected by Paul French)

Volker Kutscher, author of the international bestseller Babylon Berlin, continues his Gereon Rath Mystery series with Goldstein as a police inspector investigates the crime and corruption of a decadent 1930s Berlin in the shadows of the growing Nazi movement.

Berlin, 1931. A power struggle is taking place in Berlin's underworld. The American gangster Abraham Goldstein is in residence at the Hotel Excelsior. As a favour to the FBI, the police put him under surveillance with Detective Gereon Rath on the job. As Rath grows bored and takes on a private case for his seedy pal Johann Marlow, he soon finds himself in the middle of a Berlin street war. Meanwhile Rath's on-off girlfriend, Charly, lets a young woman she is interrogating escape, and soon her investigations cross Rath's from the other side. Berlin is a divided city where two worlds are about to collide: the world of the American gangster and the expanding world of Nazism.

"[Kutscher's] trick is ingenious...He's created a portrait of an era through the lens of genre fiction."--The New York Times

Brief description: VOLKER KUTSCHER was born in 1962. He studied German, philosophy, and history, and worked as a newspaper editor prior to writing his first detective novel. Babylon Berlin, the start of an award-winning series of novels to feature Gereon Rath and his exploits in late Weimar Republic Berlin, was an instant hit in Germany. The series was awarded the Berlin Krimi-Fuchs Crime Writers Prize in 2011 and has sold more than one million copies worldwide and was adapted as a 12-part Netflix miniseries by Tom Tykwer (director of Cloud Atlas and The International). He lives in Cologne.

Review Quotes:

Praise for the Gereon Rath series:

"Volker Kutscher's Babylon Berlin series is like the love child of Christopher Isherwood and Raymond Chandler." --Paul French, CrimeReads (Favorite Crime Books of the Year)

"The first in a series that's been wildly popular in Germany is an excellent police procedural that cleverly captures the dark and dangerous period of the Weimer Republic before it slides into the ultimate evil of Nazism."--Kirkus Reviews

"Gereon's inquiries drag him through the mire of Berlin's underworld and the chaos of the politics of the period. Riveting and atmospheric."--Library Journal

"James Ellroy fans will welcome Kutscher's first novel and series launch, a fast-paced blend of murder and corruption sent in 1929 Berlin. Kutscher keeps the surprises coming and doesn't flinch at making his lead morally compromised."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Conjures up the dangerous decadence of the Weimar years, with blood on the Berlin streets and the Nazis lurking menacingly in the wings."--The Sunday Times (London)

"Gripping evocative thriller set in Berlin's seedy underworld during the roaring Twenties. A massive hit in its native Germany, Volker Kutscher's series, centered on Detective Inspector Gereon Rath, is currently being filmed for television."--Mail on Sunday (London)