Book Review: Straight Into Darkness by Faye Kellerman

Another used audio book purchased at very low prices at the local library.

Another very good deal, at that, since this provided hours of entertainment and intrigue during my commutes to work and back.

Now before I go on, the usual warnings to stop reading if you intend to read this book, because there will be spoilers ahead.

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

Okay, so by now if you are still reading this, I have to imagine that you either are familiar with this story already, or perhaps you do not mind the spoilers. Please just don't say that you were not given advanced warning. 

There are some books which transport you to a different place and era entirely. This is one such book.

While there are enough similarities to the everyday of our own modern existence, this story takes place in Munich just before Hitler takes power. We see the Nazis as a rising political force, with their takeover seemingly inevitable.

Yet, it has not quite happened at the time that this story takes place. This adds a fascinating element to this particular book by Kellerman.

Why?

Frankly, it's because those times in prewar Germany are not entirely unlike our own times. That seems particularly true here in the United States. In fact, many have drawn comparison in recent years regarding the sometimes eerie similarities between the modern day United States and Germany in the 1930's, in the interwar years. The time of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, which is the time which this novel takes place. 

Whether or not these claims are exaggerated, it sure does feel like the United States is a nation in which the people feel lost, and suffering some kind of loss, real or imagined. Many Americans, regardless of their political leanings, feel that the nation has lost a certain something that it once had. A certain standing, or maybe the seeming respect or esteem or even reverence which the rest of the world once seemed to hold the United States with, and which, in my humble opinion, Americans seemed not to take seriously enough. Perhaps it was this collective false sense of entitlement to our privileged position that actually contributed to us losing whatever it is that we lost.

But I digress...

Back to Germany, at the end of the Weimar era. There is absolutely nothing imagined about the sense of loss which Germans collectively felt back then. They had been defeat in the so-called Great War, and then suffered  subsequent humiliations. These included the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles, where Germans were forced to swallow the notion of being solely responsible for the horrors of the war. They were also forced to pay heavy debts, and were powerless to stop the French army from entering Germany in order to make sure that the money they felt they were owed was paid. Not surprisingly, the German economy collapsed, and the Mark became basically worthless. The famous description which we have heard over and over again was that it took a barrel full of money to buy a loaf of bread. In short, there was nothing imagined about the sense of defeat and loss which the Germans felt at the time. Their country really was in a bad way. 

This novel takes place right at the end of the Weimar Republic. The government is weak and not respected. Germans have a reputation for prioritizing order and stability. Thus, they are hungering for someone to restore some kind of order to the country. The man of the moment was Adolf Hitler. His rise to power by this point looks inevitable, and this is particularly true in Munich, where this book takes place.

Pretty much all of the trademarks which we, in hindsight, recognize as being part of the Nazi era are starting to be presumed, and to a large extent installed in a de facto manner. Young radicals are completely taken with Hitler, and they have a sense of entitlement to do whatever they please. Laws in Germany at the time were not taken seriously, since they were associated with the weak, ineffective, and ultimately doomed Weimar government. Clearly, those supporting Hitler were a powerful group, and already were assuming that their turn would inevitably be coming soon. In fact, they seem to believe that their time is already here. Hitler's rise to power feels inevitable. Such is the situation in Munich, and this is the backdrop of the events in Kellerman's book.

To me, that is a large part of what made this particular book stand out. Murder mysteries, of course, have their dark, morbid aspects. But the historical setting in Germany just before the rise of Hitler and the Nazis certainly adds to that dark feel. The fact that some of the crimes and even a murder are taken - at least by some of the characters in this book - as not overly serious, that the murder of a Jew in particular, who is merely suspected (wrongly) of murder, and that this killing of that Jew almost doesn't seem to count for the most radically pro-Nazi characters both somehow reinforces and adds to the already dark feel of the book.

Otherwise, this felt like a relatively straightforward murder mystery kind of a book. Certainly well-written, and overall quite entertaining. Don't believe that I had ever read a Kellerman book before. But this was an impressive enough read that I intend to 

Highly recommended!