And if Dear Child gets you hooked, then keep your eyes peeled for Hausman’s second book Martha Schläft, just out in Bulloch’s translation as Sleepless. Hailed as Gone Girl meets Room, Dear Child was critically acclaimed in the UK, with its English publisher Quercus describing it as the “thriller that starts where others end”. One big success over the last few years has been Romy Hausmann, notably with her debut, Liebes Kind (translated into English by Jamie Bulloch as Dear Child). If regional crime fiction is hard to sell abroad, then psychological suspense is the golden sibling. I’m picturing a spin-off series with a sleuthing Nicola Sturgeon (The Girl with the Saltire Tattoo, perhaps?) – and of course, a cross-over, in which the two pair up… Psychological suspense Rights have sold for a number of languages but not yet English. Bavaria’s a particular hit here, with Rita Falk and author duo Klüpfel and Kobr scoring huge bestsellers in the German market Falk’s books – with titles such as Knödel-Blues (Dumpling Blues) and Weisswurstconnection (White Sausage Connection) have even been turned into feature films.įor German-language readers longing for a bit more sun, though, there are also plenty of Regiokrimis set in Brittany, Provence and Sicily, with their authors – like Jean-Luc Bannelec of the bestselling Inspector Dupin series – adopting pseudonyms so as to seem to come from the place they write about.Īdmittedly, regional crime fiction doesn’t lend itself quite so well to translation – but I’d like to make a special case for David Safier’s Miss Merkel (out in spring 2021 I’m hoping this is the start of a series), in which the erstwhile Chancellor retires to the Uckermark and starts solving crimes. There are the Krimis which are set in very specific, generally rural German locations “using lots of dialect that wouldn’t be understood an hour down the road”, as Kat Hall puts it. RegiokrimiĪ paid-up member of the cosy crime club, regional crime fiction is probably more established in Germany than it is in the UK. Lee Chadeayne) has you covered – with the first book set during the witch trials of the 17 th century. Or if you want to go further back in time, Oliver Pötzsch’s The Hangman’s Daughtersequence (tr. (I know what they say about judging books, but honestly, I’d buy the latest book in the series – Der Ballhaus Mörder – for the cover alone.) And as a sucker for historical crime with a female investigator (specific, I know), I can’t wait to get my hands on Anne Stern’s Fräulein Gold series, which sees a Berlin midwife solving crimes.īut as Kat Hall, translator and crime reviewer points out, recent Krimis have explored a far wider range of historical settings, with books like Uwe Klausner‘s ‘Sydow’ series engaging with the legacy of the GDR and the Baader-Meinhof terrorist attacks that shook Germany in the 1970s. Each book is set in a different milieu, with murders taking place during fashion shows or linked to Germany’s burgeoning film industry. If you’re a fan of Babylon Berlin and you read German, you might want to check out Susanne Goga’s Charlottenburg series, set in the murky world of Berlin’s alleged golden age in the 1920s. The first book in the Oppenheimer series, Germania follows a Jewish detective who’s reactivated by the Gestapo in 1944 as their attempts to find a serial killer grow increasingly desperate. Alexandra Roesch), which has garnered comparisons with Philip Kerr. Also recently out in English is Harald Gilber’s Germania (tr. Niall Sellar) has been the runaway success story of recent years, exploring the Nazis’ rise to power through the eyes of a police investigator – with a pleasingly Cabaret-like atmosphere. Volker Kutcher’s Babylon Berlinseries (tr. German historical crime is probably the genre that’s made the biggest impact on the UK book market – in part thanks to a certain British obsession with the Nazi period. “You’re writing about German crime fiction? So, like, Babylon Berlin?” So what are German crime fans reading at the moment? And what should we be adding to our TBR piles? Historical crime On the whole, they aren’t going to think of Germany.Īnd yet crime fiction and thrillers are a huge segment of the German book market, with contemporary Krimis (crime novels) shifting tens of millions of copies and regularly topping the bestseller list. Or they might mention a long-running series with a semi-exotic setting and a TV adaptation – Inspector Montalbano, perhaps, or Maigret. Mention translated crime, and the chances are that people’s first association will be with Scandinavia.
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