Rosa: A Novel

by Jonathan Rabb Narrated by Simon Prebble

Overview

In the last days of the First World War, socialist revolution swept across Germany, sending Kaiser Wilhelm into exile and transforming Berlin into a battleground. But for Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner and his young assistant, Hans Fichte, the revolution is a mere inconvenience. Four women from the slums of Berlin have turned up dead, all with identical markings etched into their backs, and Hoffner and Fichte have spent the better part of six weeks trying to crack the bizarre case.



Things take a troubling turn when the political police begin to show an interest in Hoffner's investigation. Hoffner has no idea why the Polpo would want to get their hands dirty with a serial murderer, until he is shown the lifeless body of Rosa Luxemburg, the same eerie markings on her back. Rumors abound that Rosa, one of the leaders of the suppressed socialist uprising, was assassinated by an angry mob, but the pattern carved into her back tells a different story.



In his remarkable thriller, Jonathan Rabb paints a vivid, unforgettable picture of a city and a people poised between the chaos of the First World War and the darkness to come, a time when political thugs, petty thieves, and charismatic leaders rushed to fill the void left behind. Into this gap steps Hoffner, who, while battling his own personal demons, is still determined to find out who is preying on the women of Berlin, even as he gets drawn deeper into the mystery surrounding Rosa's death. Hoffner's search for the killer leads him on a dark and twisted journey through the battle-scarred streets of the city, where he soon discovers that nothing is as it appears. And while he finds allies in unexpected places, he is met at every turn by men who will stop at nothing to keep him from finding out the truth about Rosa.



A genuine mystery at the time, Rosa's fate has continued to prompt speculation to this day. Rabb's taut political thriller imagines one strikingly real possibility. With his first two novels, The Overseer and The Book of Q, Rabb proved that he had a talent not only for writing suspenseful narratives but for illuminating the darkest corners of history as well. With Rosa, his finest work, he brings to life a world capital on the brink of chaos, a tragic revolutionary who both inspired and enraged, and a compellingly complex, world-weary, deeply flawed but brilliant inspector named Nikolai Hoffner.

Editorial Reviews

Toronto Globe and Mail

"Any fan of historical mystery should read this. ... at its heart, it is a brilliant, real-life mystery transformed into fiction."

Detroit Free Press

"...a novel so richly drawn, so dark and so compelling it reaches into your gut and holds on tight... "

Boston Globe

"...Berlin is the chief character here, and Rabb artfully delineates the city as it emerges from war, defeat, and revolution ...."

Harper's

"...astonishing...a ghostly noir that could have been conspired at by Raymond Chandler and André Malraux."

Publishers Weekly

Based on the obscure four-month-long disappearance of the corpse of Rosa Luxemburg, the "Devil Jewess" Socialist Democrat revolutionary, after her summary execution on January 15, 1919, this brooding, studiously researched fiction noir from Rabb (The Overseer; The Book of Q) imagines the maelstrom of conspiracy and political unrest in post-WWI Germany. For six dreary weeks, starting in early December, veteran Det. Insp. Nikolai Hoffner-along with Hans Fichte, an ambitious 23-year-old detective trainee-has been baffled by the corpses of middle-aged women appearing around Berlin with signature designs carved into their backs. In mid-January, Hoffner is called to see a fifth corpse in an abandoned subway station, and at the morgue, he is shown a sixth body-that of the infamous Rosa Luxemburg. Her corpse has similar markings, but there are subtle differences. These suspicious variations-coupled with the arrogant intervention of the powerful Polpo (political police), who spirit the corpse away to a morgue upstairs-launch Hoffner on a perilous, labyrinthine inquiry. Sometimes the novel's prose is rather tangled and Rabb struggles to get his story told, but subtexts of love, betrayal and a detective at war with his feelings illuminate this gothic tapestry of anti-Semitism and ethnic elitism with its foreshadowing of the Nazi era. Agent, Matt Bialer. (Mar. 1) Forecast: Fans of Philip Kerr and Alan Furst are Rabb's target audience, but his latest may disappoint them. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

In 1918 Berlin, the cops think they've got a serial killer on their hands until the latest victim turns out to be Rosa Luxemburg. The killer's fifth corpse has been mistreated in keeping with the established pattern, complex markings chiseled on its back. This is no ordinary corpse, however, but that of a driving force of the recently crushed socialist revolution. Suddenly, the Polpo (political police) are showing interest. Ever so politely, a territorial struggle has begun, and Kripo (criminal police) Detective Inspector Hoffner soon realizes he's being warned off. But Hoffner, as all his colleagues know, is a bulldog who investigates with a tenacity often amounting to rashness. "It's my case," he tells his wife when she tries to suggest that some warnings might be well meant. "It ends when it ends." Rosa is the obvious key. Was she the random victim of a killer whose bloodlust was up, or is someone using a madman to camouflage a conspiracy? Hoffner becomes a Luxemburg expert. He gets to know her friends, her early life, her writing. He gets to know who loved her, who hated and feared her. It's an investigation that leads him to strange places and disturbing ideas, and when the case finally ends, he must come to terms with grievous loss. As before (The Book of Q, 2001, etc.), Rabb saps the strength of a perfectly good story by taking too long to tell it.

From the Publisher

Tantalizing . . . memorable . . . a tour de force.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Rabb artfully delineates the city as it emerges from war, defeat, and revolution into the shadow of a nascent state of terror.” —The Boston Globe

“Rabb wields a deft and chilling pen..” —Richmond Times-Dispatch

“So richly drawn, so dark, and so compelling.” —Detroit Free Press

“Wonderfully evocative . . . this novel transcends the mystery genre by offering readers a glimpse into the economic and political chaos in Berlin after the war and then transcends politics by giving a pulsatingly detailed account of individual life at a particular moment in history.” —Booklist (starred review)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171246358
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	07/09/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged

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