The Widow Killer - Hardcover

Kohout, Pavel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312193637 ISBN 13: 9780312193638

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1998

Synopsis

A savage morality tale set in the German-occupied city of Prague sets a young Czech detective and a Gestapo agent on the trail of a perverted serial killer

About this title

Review

The bloody ironies of World War II have inspired several fine mysteries, including J. Robert Janes's books about a German and French pair of detectives (Mannequin, Salamander) and Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy. Now the noted Czech author and revolutionary Pavel Kohout adds his unique voice to this very select group.

Her placid beauty (he could describe it no other way) was even more vivid in the near-darkness; her eternally sleepy voice moved him, though she was merely explaining that she had not been waiting long; no, she had just come outside, because it occurred to her they'd have trouble finding the house. He opened the rear right door for her and then got in on the other side. What sort of rare perfume was she wearing, he almost asked, before he realized that it was the smell of soap.

That's Kohout (through translator Neil Bermel, who also did Kohout's previous novel, I Am Snowing) describing an encounter between a young and relatively idealistic Czech detective and a woman who might provide a clue to who in 1945 Occupied Prague is murdering and mutilating the widows of war heroes.

Like Janes, Kohout makes his two cops an intriguing set: the young Czech, Morava, is partnered with a Gestapo officer, Buback, who turns out to have Czech origins and a secret agenda. While ostensibly keeping an eye on the Prague police for his superiors, Buback is also helping his Czech comrades prepare for the day when Germany will be defeated. That's a lot of history and social significance for a mystery novel, but Kohout has the heart and muscle to hold it all together. --Dick Adler

From the Publisher

In Prague during the final months of the Nazi occupation, a sadistic killer consumed by his own psychopathic agenda relentlessly stalks his victims.

When the doorbell rang just after the siren, Elisabeth, baroness of Pomerania, was sure the caretaker had come to escort her down to the shelter; she donned the black fur coat she had just hung up, picked up her small emergency suitcase, unhooked the door chain, and realized that she had just let her murderer in....

With this startling opening, The Widow Killer plunges deep into the diabolical workings of the killer's mind. As the lives of Czech detective Jan Morava and Gestapo agent Erwin Buback collide to solve this politically charged murder case, both must grapple with their own inner turmoil as will as the violent war-torn world that surrounds them. Using the murder as its epicenter, The Widow Killer explores the deepest recesses and complexities of the universal human condition.

In Praise of The Widow Killer:
"A daring, moving, historically insightful novel of great distinction. Daring in it perspective, moving in its execution--one recognizes the dramatist at work--insightful in that it reveals the dangerous delusions of historical hubris." --Siegfried Lenz

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0312193637
• ISBN 13: 9780312193638
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 391