A family: man , wife, their daughter, her two children and a new maid are all brutally murdered at a secluded farm. As one of the characters notes, “…there’s no God in this world, only Hell. And Hell is here on earth in our heads, in our hearts. The demon’s here in every one of us, and everyone of us can let our demons out at any time.” A fitting message for a novel set in the countryside of post-war Germany where demons were loosed, demons that were, for the most part, ordinary people, just like the murderer who is caught in a web of circumstance, naivety, and a burst of passion that carries him beyond the pale with the willful taking of lives. Schenkel writes in a very spare, terse style, almost like a documentary. The story mixes the present, the past, and the future, the latter in the form of police reports of the impressions or knowledge of various persons who had known the murdered family. It is a novel about secrets of lives and families. In the end, however, while I didn’t dislike the book, it is not one that I would urge on others, compared to other new mysteries and writers out there. Maybe it’s the lack of a strong central character whom we can like or dislike and whose life we share, as opposed to a story in which the incident itself is the character, clever though Schenkel is in unraveling it.

As the Times reviewer said "Remarmable, sparse, chilling". The mix of personal reports and interviews of witnesses drawing you relentlessly to the crime and the muderer is compelling. Very good atmoshpere. ( )

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/... ( )

For me Andrea Maria Schenkel's The Murder Farm is a very unique crime fiction novel. The blurbs make comparisons to Truman Capote's In cold blood. Having not read Capote's work I won't comment anymore on that.

Set in a rural area of Post World War II Germany--the action of the novel progresses through the eyes of the killer and through the eyes of a false lead--a criminal and black marketeer. It is also helped along by the police testimony of neighbors and those acquainted with the victims--the Danner family. It is also a tale of incest and abuse--of greed and malice--of love gone wrong which leads to the killing of 6 people--an entire Danner family of 5 plus a maid who has only been hired on the very same day the murderer strikes.

The written testimonies of the various and sundry witnesses (which include the killer) is the only area of the investigation which Schenkel provides. The book presumes for the reader that the police are left without a trail or a motive. The discovery of the killer is presented as an epiphany in the final pages. A logic and a motive is there. The false lead serves to obscure and protect the motive. It is likewise obscured by the prejudices of the locals who cannot believe that one of their own could so brutally slay an entire family--even one as disliked as the Danner's.

The book reads very quickly. It is written mostly in short chapters and more or less chronologically follows the events as they happen--Schenkel rather artfully revealing details large and small as she goes along bringing us closer and closer to its jarring conclusion. For a crime novel--I found it a fun book to read despite its grisliness. She has excellent technical skills and is particularly adept at exploring the psychologies of those involved in it whether criminals, victims or witnesses in fairly terse descriptions.

Anyway I thought it was excellent and I'm hoping that more of her work becomes available in the near future. ( )