The Second Rider
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An internationally acclaimed crime novel set in post-WWI Vienna: “A thrilling, deeply satisfying debut” by “the new star of Austrian crime fiction” (Kronen Zeitung).
Vienna, 1919. In the desperate years after World War I, the Habsburg Empire is a fading memory and most of Vienna’s remaining population survives by its wits, living hand to mouth in a city rife with crime, prostitution, and grotesquely wounded beggars. There are shakedowns on every street corner, the black market is the only market, and shortages of vital goods create countless opportunities for unscrupulous operators.
Into this cauldron of vice comes Insp. August Emmerich. A veteran himself, Emmerich is determined to join the Viennese major crimes unit, and he’s more than willing to break the rules in pursuit of his ambition. When a corpse is found in the woods outside the city and immediately labeled a suicide, Emmerich sees a chance to prove his mettle. His investigations into the suspicious death soon reveals an insidious and homicidal urge lurking in the city.
The Second Rider is the “outstanding series launch” of Alex Beer’s international-bestselling novels featuring police agent August Emmerich (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Austrian author Beer makes her English-language debut with this outstanding series launch set in 1919 Vienna. For three months, Insp. August Emmerich has been on the trail of Veit Kolja, the head of a large-scale black market smuggling operation that supplies people with basic needs food, medicine, and clothing that remain scarce in a city still devastated by WWI. Emmerich dreams of a reassignment to the elite division that handles homicides and hopes to showcase his deductive skills after his inexperienced new assistant stumbles across a corpse in the woods. The dead man is eventually identified as war veteran Dietrich Jost, who suffered from extreme shell shock. The coroner and Emmerich's boss, District Insp. Leopold Sander, are eager to label Jost's death a suicide, even after a second body turns up. Emmerich resists Sander's directives to devote himself to the smuggling ring, even as he grapples with debilitating pain from a war wound as well as a devastating development in his personal life. Despite the plot's essential grimness, Beer is able to inject some humor. Fans of Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series will be intrigued.
