Title: Snow White Must Die
Author: Nele Neuhaus
Publication: Pan (4 July 2013)
Summary: In a trial based on circumstantial evidence 20-year-old Tobias Sartorius was convicted and imprisoned for the murder of his childhood friend Laura and his beautiful girlfriend Stefanie – otherwise known as Snow White. After serving his sentence, Tobias returns home. When the Sartorius family is subjected to a number of attacks, Detective Inspector Pia Kirchhoff and DS Oliver von Bodenstein are tasked with monitoring the tense atmosphere in the tight-knit community. As the village inhabitants close ranks it becomes apparent the disappearance of Snow White and her friend was far more complex than imagined. Then history starts to repeat itself in a disastrous manner when another pretty girl goes missing. The police are thrown into a race against time. Can they solve the mystery before it’s too late?
What I Think
I nearly gave up on this book because quite frankly the writing is a little dire in places. At times sentences were unclear, cliches have been used, there's a dramatic over-use of adverbs and the dialogue was occasionally implausible. I appreciate that some of this may be due to translation errors, but I still would not expect this is in a published novel.
However, despite all this, I plowed on and I'm pleased I did. The story is excellent with an unpredictable plot and there is a vast array of fleshed-out characters (one or two unnecessary). It was a good thriller and I enjoyed reading a book set in Germany, but I would only recommend it to people who are willing to be a little lenient and read over its imperfections.
About the Author
Cornelia Neuhaus (born 20 June 1967 in Münster) is a German writer. She is best known for her crime thrillers.
About the Book
Title: Alone in Berlin - UK/Every Man Dies Alone - US (Jeder stirbt für sich allein - Original title)
Author: Hans Fallada
Publication: 1947
Summary: Set in WWII this is a story of an ordinary couple who choose to do something extraordinary.
What I Think
Based on a true story Hans Fallada writes the story of Otto and Anna Quangel, a quiet and ordinary couple who are living in Germany during WWII. He is a foreman, she is a housewife and when they lose their only son to a Russian bullet they decide to fight back: by distributing anti-Nazi, anti-Hitler messages carefully written on the back of postcards.
Using an omnipresent narrator we follow the lives not only of Otto and Anna, but also the other residents in their apartment block, various police officers and SS inspectors who are trying to catch the "Hobgoblin" (their code name for the writer of the mysterious postcards) and other people who are in some way related to the narrative. I felt this left me less attached to the main character(s). I also felt that some of the characters were unnecessary and this led to a slightly sluggish start to the novel.
By no means a light read, in subject matter or in length, it was, however, extremely interesting. Having read a fair few books (based on true stories or fictional) and having lived in Germany, the novel was peppered with countless little details that made it seem very real.
Recommended to anyone interested in the period and/or Germany.
About the Author
Hans Fallada (21 July 1893 – 5 February 1947), real name Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen, was a German writer. Fallada's pseudonym derives from a combination of characters found in the Grimm's Fairy Tales: the protagonist of Hans in Luck and a horse named Falada in The Goose Girl. Other novels are Little Man, What Now? (1932).
About the Book
Title: Half Blood Blues
Author: Esi Edugyan
Publication: Serpent's Tail (2011)/Amazon Kindle
Summary: In Half Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan weaves the horror of betrayal, the burden of loyalty and the possibility that, if you don't tell your story, someone else might tell it for you. And they just might tell it wrong ...
What I Think
I wanted to read this because it had been shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2011, along with five others: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (the winning novel), Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch, The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt, Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman and Snowdrops by A.D. Miller. A shortlisting for this highly prestigious prize is, in itself, a massive achievement, and I therefore had high expectations of this novel.
Set in Berlin and Paris at the beginning of World War II, a group of musicians are brought together by not much other than their shared love of jazz. Sid (on bass) and Chip, friends since childhood in Baltimore, had travelled to Germany to escape the Jim Crow laws governing 1920s America. Paul (a Jewish pianist), Ernst (club owner of the Hound) and Fritz (a blond Bavarian) were all Germans, as was Hieronymous 'the kid' Falk. Hiero was also black, a Mischling, a half-blood, and a mean trumpeter, due to play with Louis Armstrong in Paris. Throw into the mix Delilah Brown, a singer who gets Sid's blood pumping faster than Paul's nimble fingers on the ivories. The political, personal and professional tension is running high, and people don't always cope well in those kind of circumstances.
"Don't get me wrong - I loved Berlin. I ain't saying otherwise. And for awhile the Housepainter didn't even seem as bad as old Jim Crow. Least here in Europe a jack felt a little loved for his art - even if it was a secret love [...] Cause blacks just wasn't no kind of priority back in those years. I guess there just wasn't enough of us."
Although the main events are surrounding Hiero, this is Sid's story. He has a strong voice, which is heavily accented. This sometimes makes for slow reading as you need to concentrate to work out what he is saying. Add to that the heavy subject matter and this was not an easy read. However, it was very satisfying and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the era, jazz, or a darn good story.
About the Author
Esi Edugyan is a graduate of the University of Victoria and Johns Hopkins University. Her work has appeared in several anthologies, including Best New American Voices 2003. Her debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, was published internationally. Half Blood Blues, won the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize for Fiction. It was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize, and was longlisted for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with her husband and daughter.
