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Fantasy. Fiction. Mystery. If you thought magic was confined to one country-think again. Trier: famous for wine, Romans, and being Germany's oldest city. When a man is found dead with his body impossibly covered in a fungal rot, the local authorities know they are out of their depth. But fortunately this is Germany, where there are procedures for everything. Enter Tobias Winter, an investigator for the Abteilung KDA, the branch of the German Federal Criminal Police which handles the supernatural. His aim is to get in, deal with the problem, and get out with the minimum of fuss, personal danger, and paperwork. Together with frighteningly enthusiastic local cop, Vanessa Sommer, he quickly links the first victim to a group of ordinary middle aged men whose novel approach to their mid-life crisis may have reawakened a bloody conflict from a previous century. As the rot spreads, literally, and the suspect list extends to people born before Frederick the Great, Tobias and Vanessa will need to find allies in some unexpected places. And to solve the case they'll have to unearth the secret magical history of a city that goes back two thousand years. Presuming that history doesn't kill them first.… (more)
User reviews
Tobias is a bit blander than Peter and not as snarky, but he is an appealing character. Fans of the Rivers of London will want to read this, and it also stands alone quite well.
I still love Peter Grant, but I hope to see more of Tobias Winter.
Received via NetGalley.
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When
This is a short book- a novella, really- so a lot happens in a short time. Vanessa (and the readers) are brought up to speed on the magical situation during drives from place to place and a dinner scene. Tobias has a different voice from Peter’s; he’s much more serious and doesn’t have the wit when describing things that Peter does. It took me a while to warm up to him. Vanessa has promise; she catches on to things very quickly. While I really hope to see more of Peter Grant and Nightingale, I look forward to seeing more of Winter and Sommer (really?!?!), too. Four stars; good magic and murder plot but too rushed.
The book then proceeds like a typical police crime mystery but with the addition of the supernatural. There are many clever or humorous elements in the book. I liked the way the author blended the supernatural elements with the matter of fact German attitude to science as well as police work and bureaucracy.
A fun and lightweight read (the author calls it a novella, my hardcover copy was two hundred pages).
Tobias Winter is called on to investigate a mysterious death in Trier, helped by a local cop Vanessa Sommer (and yes this does produce a "really?" response from Tobias. The two of them are interesting together and they do work well together.
The mystery was well done, I was left wanting more.
A departure from London, we learn that there are Rivers in other parts of the world as well, at least in Germany, where this story takes place. At first, I didn't care for the fact that Peter Grant and Nightingale wouldn't
Their leads take them to the owner of a local vineyard, Jacky Stracker, who is the latest in a long line of family members who have a deep connection to the land and the loci around. She tells them some stories about her grandfather and how he used to leave offerings to the river. Tobias buys a bottle of wine and leaves it on the tree with his business card. Shortly after, he is rung up by a lady calling herself Kelly, she is the goddess of the river and wants to talk. It doesn’t take long for them to find out who he is and discover who his friends are. Bringing them in for questioning reveals that they are just a group of guys who want to drink wine and talk about art. But there is something else going on, and slowly it dawns on them they are witnessing the continuation of a conflict that has been going on for over a century in the magical realm of the city.
I liked this a lot and it was an interesting story taken from the perspective of the German equivalents to Grant and Nightingale. The plot was fairly straightforward with some nice touches and interplay between the two main characters. You also get the sense that he spent a fair amount of time there researching the city, and it has those details that I have come to expect in the previous books as we tear around London. However, I did miss Peter, Nightingale, the Folly and London that I have come to know from all the other books. Would be good to see each character travel to each other’s city in future books.
I give this a three star because I have pretty bad expectations for novella spin-offs; without the main characters, the story usually falls flat.
So this book did surprisingly well at maintaining the usual cop-slash-wizard procedural story. I expected a lot
The real problems are as follows:
1. How much German am I supposed to know?
- I understand all the German is supposed to build atmosphere and certainly the German accent added to that too, but it made a lot of things incomprehensible to me. Most of the names of places and departments flew by me. I ended up buying the Kindle book to follow along - I realised I’d lost track of the suspects 2/3 of the way through the book.
2. Sibilant much?
- I thought publishing houses put more effort into audiobooks these days, so it was with great surprise to find that nothing was done to tone down the sibilants in the audio. All the over-powering “s” physically hurt me - I had to crank down the treble in my car to get through most of the book.
So overall, if you are really desperate for a story set in the Peter Grant word (fully understanding that there is no actual Peter Grant or a very diluted version of him), then pick up this book. And even then, pick up the Kindle version; you’d save your ears, and the story would make more sense (if, like me, you don’t know German).
I enjoyed that narration of Sam Peter Jackson quite a bit.
audio book 1/30/2024