The New Detective
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Willi Geismeier thought he’d faced the worst of humanity on the battlefield in World War I, but when he returns to Munich he is drawn into an investigation that proves to be just as chilling.
1913, Munich. Nineteen-year-old Willi Geismeier is showing great promise as a rookie detective in the Munich police department when he is sent to fight in World War I. After narrowly surviving the horrors of the conflict, Willi returns home, where the challenges he faces seem just as grave.
The Spanish flu or ‘Grippe’ rips through Munich with devastating consequences and Willi, now back in the police force, finds himself investigating an insurance scam, missing drugs and the mysterious death of a prisoner. As chilling links emerge between all three, Willi confronts a grotesque scientific theory and a dangerous ideology taking root in society that could lead him to a killer, but there are those who are just as determined to stop him in his tracks . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Steiner's enthralling fourth outing for Geismeier (after 2022's The Inconvenient German) revisits the detective's rookie days with the Munich police. In 1913, a 19-year-old Geismeier, fresh out of the Royal Bavarian Police Academy, is assigned to patrol with old-school cop Werner Heisse, a bully who extorts both pimps and legitimate businesses and isn't afraid to get his knuckles bloody. The by-the-book Geismeier refuses to go along to get along, generating tensions with his crooked colleague. After Geismeier and Heisse are called to a courtyard where journalist Walther Metzger, an outspoken critic of government corruption, has been beaten to death, Geismeier finds a brass button from a police uniform in Metzger's apartment. Stymied by Heisse in his efforts to investigate further, Geismeier passes the exam to attain the rank of detective so he can launch an independent probe. It's shut down by his superiors, however. As WWI comes into view and Geismeier takes on cases including a hospital's missing drugs and an insurance scam, he begins to suspect a link between all of these crimes—and a line back to Heisse. Steiner once again blends a page-turning plot with an evocative depiction of the period. This is another strong historical mystery from a master of the genre.
