The question here is this: what do the most terrible crimes -- serial murder, child abuse, rape, murder for profit, animal abuse ... the usual stuff of the thrillers we devour like candy-- matter when one of the worst atrocities in history is being perpetrated on your doorstep, by your "friends" and neighbours?
It is Vienna, 1939. Austria has been reunited with the glorious German Reich for just over two years. The War (which is going gloriously, of course) is just a few months old. Housing is at a premium, in spite of all the Jewish families who have been quietly disappeared from their traditional flats and neighbourhoods. Professor Speckstein-- disgraced academic and official neighbourhood spy for the Nazi authorities-- lives in a premium flat in a traditional Viennese apartment block, with his hypochondriac niece and his housekeeper. And Professor Speckstein (who is NOT Jewish, don't be deceived by the name, thank you very much) wants to know who has brutally murdered his poor old dog.
Oh, there's a serial killer loose in Speckstein's neighbourhood -- someone has been doing a Jack the Ripper on several young men and women who are involved with the local Nazi Party. And meanwhile, in the less desirable apartments beyond the dingy courtyard at the back of Speckstein's flat, a man (who is a Marcel Marceau-style mime, for heaven's sake) may be keeping a young woman as a sex-slave, in unbelievable squalor. The apartment block's custodian may be getting on with some Sweeney Todd-type activities, deep in his basement workshop. A little girl, crippled in an accident as a baby, may be physically abused by her alcoholic father. And a mysterious Japanese trumpet-player is getting up to heaven knows what ....
But, hey! The dog ... Speckstein more or less blackmails his neighbour, Dr. Anton Beer, to investigate. If the murderer of the dog turns out to be responsible for the butchered Party faithful, so much the better. If "whoever turns out to be responsible" also happens to actually be guilty of the crimes, better still, but that's not a deal-breaker. Beer is a disgraced GP (you're noticing a pattern here, I'm sure) who is trying to keep his previous career as a follower of Dr. Freud very quiet. And while we're wondering about what the denizens of this apartment block are up to, we might ask where is Dr. Beer's wife, and why did she abandon the marital home with none of her clothes or other belongings ...?
It probably goes without saying that Beer's reluctant investigations open multiple cans of worms, some of them completely unexpected, and put him --and some of the most innocent and vulnerable of those he encounters -- in terrible danger. This is Vienna, 1939, and I don't think it's a spoiler to say that it will be a miracle if anyone gets out of this alive ...
This was an unexpected gem of incredible power and depth, in my opinion. It's a slow burn, possibly made slower by the pervading sense of dread that this is all going to end very badly. No spoilers, but Vyleta manages to wind it all up in a way that is ... satisfying.
The one warning that should come on the cover of this book (Yes, yes, gruesome. Nasty in parts. Very upsetting, if you like dogs. Or children. Or people. This is a book about Nazi-occupied Austria, for heaven's sake ...) is that it will ruin you for thrillers for quite a while. (And possibly ruin mimes for you, too, if that hasn't already happened a long time ago.) Immediately after I finished this, I tried to pick up a "cosy mystery," by a writer I've previously enjoyed, as a palate cleanser. And I found that it was just not working for me. Because, however awful the crimes depicted in your run of the mill thriller, it is as nothing compared to the gut-wrenching terror of everyday life under the Third Reich, which this incredible novel captures so very well.
It is Vienna, 1939. Austria has been reunited with the glorious German Reich for just over two years. The War (which is going gloriously, of course) is just a few months old. Housing is at a premium, in spite of all the Jewish families who have been quietly disappeared from their traditional flats and neighbourhoods. Professor Speckstein-- disgraced academic and official neighbourhood spy for the Nazi authorities-- lives in a premium flat in a traditional Viennese apartment block, with his hypochondriac niece and his housekeeper. And Professor Speckstein (who is NOT Jewish, don't be deceived by the name, thank you very much) wants to know who has brutally murdered his poor old dog.
Oh, there's a serial killer loose in Speckstein's neighbourhood -- someone has been doing a Jack the Ripper on several young men and women who are involved with the local Nazi Party. And meanwhile, in the less desirable apartments beyond the dingy courtyard at the back of Speckstein's flat, a man (who is a Marcel Marceau-style mime, for heaven's sake) may be keeping a young woman as a sex-slave, in unbelievable squalor. The apartment block's custodian may be getting on with some Sweeney Todd-type activities, deep in his basement workshop. A little girl, crippled in an accident as a baby, may be physically abused by her alcoholic father. And a mysterious Japanese trumpet-player is getting up to heaven knows what ....
But, hey! The dog ... Speckstein more or less blackmails his neighbour, Dr. Anton Beer, to investigate. If the murderer of the dog turns out to be responsible for the butchered Party faithful, so much the better. If "whoever turns out to be responsible" also happens to actually be guilty of the crimes, better still, but that's not a deal-breaker. Beer is a disgraced GP (you're noticing a pattern here, I'm sure) who is trying to keep his previous career as a follower of Dr. Freud very quiet. And while we're wondering about what the denizens of this apartment block are up to, we might ask where is Dr. Beer's wife, and why did she abandon the marital home with none of her clothes or other belongings ...?
It probably goes without saying that Beer's reluctant investigations open multiple cans of worms, some of them completely unexpected, and put him --and some of the most innocent and vulnerable of those he encounters -- in terrible danger. This is Vienna, 1939, and I don't think it's a spoiler to say that it will be a miracle if anyone gets out of this alive ...
This was an unexpected gem of incredible power and depth, in my opinion. It's a slow burn, possibly made slower by the pervading sense of dread that this is all going to end very badly. No spoilers, but Vyleta manages to wind it all up in a way that is ... satisfying.
The one warning that should come on the cover of this book (Yes, yes, gruesome. Nasty in parts. Very upsetting, if you like dogs. Or children. Or people. This is a book about Nazi-occupied Austria, for heaven's sake ...) is that it will ruin you for thrillers for quite a while. (And possibly ruin mimes for you, too, if that hasn't already happened a long time ago.) Immediately after I finished this, I tried to pick up a "cosy mystery," by a writer I've previously enjoyed, as a palate cleanser. And I found that it was just not working for me. Because, however awful the crimes depicted in your run of the mill thriller, it is as nothing compared to the gut-wrenching terror of everyday life under the Third Reich, which this incredible novel captures so very well.
