Shadow and LightShadow and Light
Title rated 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 20 ratings(20 ratings)
Book, 2009
Current format, Book, 2009, 1st ed, No Longer Available.Book, 2009
Current format, Book, 2009, 1st ed, No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formatsBerlin, between the two world wars. When an executive at the renowned Ufa film studios is found dead floating in his office bathtub, it falls to Nikolai Hoffner, a chief inspector in the Kriminalpolizei, to investigate. With the help of Fritz Lang (the German director) and Alby Pimm (leader of the most powerful crime syndicate in Berlin), Hoffner finds his case taking him beyond the world of film and into the far more treacherous landscape of Berlin’s sex and drug trade, the rise of Hitler’s Brownshirts (the SA), and the even more astonishing attempts by onetime monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany. Being swept up in the case are Hoffner’s new lover, an American talent agent for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and his two sons: Georg, who has dropped out of school to work at Ufa, and Sascha, his angry, older son, who, unknown to his father, has become fully entrenched in the new German Workers Party as the aide to its Berlin leader, Joseph Goebbels. What a spellbinding novel Shadow and Light is, and what a novelist Jonathan Rabb has become! When we last met Hoffner, it was 1919, and he had taken on the disappearance and death of Rosa Luxembourg in Rosa, a novel the critic John Leonard hailed as “a ghostly noir that could have been conspired at by Raymond Chandler and André Malraux.” Shadow and Light is equally brilliant and atmospheric, and even harder to put down or shake off. Like Joseph Kanon or Alan Furst, Rabb magically fuses a smart, energetic narrative with layers of fascinating, vividly documented history. The result is a stunning historical thriller, created by a writer to celebrate—and contend with.
Berlin, 1927. It's the heyday of the Weimar Republic, and Ufa - the home of German cinema - is producing some of the most acclaimed films of the time. But when a studio executive is found dead in his office bathtub, the discovery sets in motion an investigation that will expose the darker and more desperate side of a country coming apart at the seams.
Assigned to look into the supposed suicide is Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar Nikolai Hoffner, who is determined to find the truth behind what he firmly believes is murder. With the help of Fritz Lang, the German director, and Alby Pimm, the leader of the most powerful crime syndicate in Berlin, Hoffner finds his case taking him beyond the world of film and into the far more treacherous landscape of Berlin's sex and drug trade, the rise of Hitler's Brownshirts (the SA), and the even more astonishing attempts by onetime monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany. Swept up in the case are Hoffner's new lover, and American talent agent for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and his two sons: Georg, who has dropped out of school to work at Ufa, and Sascha, the angry older son, who, unknown to his father, has become fully entrenched in the new German Workers Party as the aide to its Berlin leader, Joseph Goebbels.
When an executive at the renowned Ufa film studios is found dead floating in his office bathtub, it falls to Nikolai Hoffner, a chief inspector in the Kriminalpolizei, to investigate. Hoffner finds his case taking him beyond the world of film and into the far more treacherous landscape of Berlin's sex and drug trade, the rise of Hitler's Brownshirts (the SA), and the even more astonishing attempts by onetime monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany.
Investigating the suspicious death of a film studio executive in Berlin, Kriminalpolizei chief inspector Nikolai Hoffner turns to a famous German director and a powerful crime syndicate boss for help when the case is connected to the city's sex and drug trade, an uprising among Hitler's Brownshirts, and an attempt by monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany.
In 1927 Berlin, chief inspector Nikolai Hoffner investigates the death of a film studio executive and finds connections between the city's sex and drug trade, an uprising among Hitler's Brownshirts, and an attempt to rearm Germany.
Berlin, 1927. It's the heyday of the Weimar Republic, and Ufa - the home of German cinema - is producing some of the most acclaimed films of the time. But when a studio executive is found dead in his office bathtub, the discovery sets in motion an investigation that will expose the darker and more desperate side of a country coming apart at the seams.
Assigned to look into the supposed suicide is Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar Nikolai Hoffner, who is determined to find the truth behind what he firmly believes is murder. With the help of Fritz Lang, the German director, and Alby Pimm, the leader of the most powerful crime syndicate in Berlin, Hoffner finds his case taking him beyond the world of film and into the far more treacherous landscape of Berlin's sex and drug trade, the rise of Hitler's Brownshirts (the SA), and the even more astonishing attempts by onetime monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany. Swept up in the case are Hoffner's new lover, and American talent agent for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and his two sons: Georg, who has dropped out of school to work at Ufa, and Sascha, the angry older son, who, unknown to his father, has become fully entrenched in the new German Workers Party as the aide to its Berlin leader, Joseph Goebbels.
When an executive at the renowned Ufa film studios is found dead floating in his office bathtub, it falls to Nikolai Hoffner, a chief inspector in the Kriminalpolizei, to investigate. Hoffner finds his case taking him beyond the world of film and into the far more treacherous landscape of Berlin's sex and drug trade, the rise of Hitler's Brownshirts (the SA), and the even more astonishing attempts by onetime monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany.
Investigating the suspicious death of a film studio executive in Berlin, Kriminalpolizei chief inspector Nikolai Hoffner turns to a famous German director and a powerful crime syndicate boss for help when the case is connected to the city's sex and drug trade, an uprising among Hitler's Brownshirts, and an attempt by monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany.
In 1927 Berlin, chief inspector Nikolai Hoffner investigates the death of a film studio executive and finds connections between the city's sex and drug trade, an uprising among Hitler's Brownshirts, and an attempt to rearm Germany.
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- New York : Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c2009.
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