The Widow Killer: A Novel

Kohout is a Czech writer who was one of the leaders of the 1968 Prague Spring revolt. His work was ruthlessly suppressed for twenty years. This mystery of his is set in Prague during the later years of W.W. II.
The complexities of wartime Czechoslovakia are rendered as an engrossing mystery story. A psychopathic killer is murdering widows. The Gestapo take little interest until a German resident is killed and the investigation begins to show a pattern and links to other killings. Erwin Buback, until now an unquestioning Gestapo agent and Jan Morava, a Czech police detective, are determined to track down the killer. Buback’s wife and daughter had been killed in a stray bombing of the farm where they had been sent to prevent just such show more an occurrence. He had his wife had always been loyal Nazis with little reason to question Hitler’s judgment until his invasion of Russia and Hilda, a teacher, brings home a map showing the vast expanses of Russia compared to tiny Europe. “A cartographic anomaly,” is Buback’s response.
But in the midst of the investigation, Buback become haunted by the deviant thought. “Could Hitler somehow derive some perverted satisfaction from the worldwide butchery he’d unleashed as the unknown murderer did from his slaughter of women?” The story becomes an allegory for the poisonous influence of ideology as the killer's motives become revealed as being committed in the name of a higher calling. The hunt for the killer breaks down in the chaos of the Allies’ inexorable pressure from the east and west. The world is turned upside down as right becomes wrong and evil becomes good as “the need for retribution clashed with the fear of becoming just like the men who so recently murdered their loved ones.” show less

End of book too off-track for my taste

Excelente novela que crece a medida que dejas de pensar en la trama y te centras en el ambiente y en los personajes. En la Praga ocupada, meses antes del fin de la guerra, un policía alemán y otro checo unen sus fuerzas para perseguir a un asesino en serie... ¿tópico? Pues no. Al menos, no en lo importante. El autor nos desgrana un ambiente extraño, detalle las reacciones de la gente cuando todos los límites sociales se sobrepasan -el momento en que la caída del Reich es cierta- mientras algunas personas tratan de mantener la cordura y cierto orden social.
No hay personajes tópicos, tanto la "flor de loto" Jan Morava (qué hermosa y sencilla historia de amor) como el policía de la Gestapo Buback, son tipos complejos. Por no show more hablar de las mujeres, Jitka y Grete, y del asesino.
En fin. Muy recomendable. show less

Kurz vor Kriegsende wird im besetzten Prag die Witwe eines
deutschen Generals sadistisch ermordet. Die Gestapo gibt
den Fall - unter deutscher Kontrolle - an die tschechische
Kriminalpolizei: im Grund, um deren Apparat und möglichen
Widerstand vor der näherrückenden Front auszuschalten.
Weitere Morde nach dem gleichen Horrormuster folgen, auch
an tschechischen Frauen. In atemberaubender Dramaturgie
verknüpft Kohout (s. zuletzt BA 7/92; 4/93) Elemente des
Politthrillers mit denen des Krimis. Das blindwütige Töten
der Nazis und das des irren Mörders - unterscheiden sie
sich? Als die Deutschen fliehen, gerät auch eine
tschechische Gruppe - innerhalb der bewundernswerten
Versuche, Menschlichkeit, Ordnung und Recht zu bewahren -
in den show more Rausch besinnungslosen Tötens. Innerhalb des Genres
- trotz auch schriller Töne und trivialer Einschübe - ein
ebenso faszinierender wie irritierender, bemerkenswerter
Roman, der Leser in vielen Bibliotheken fesseln wird. show less

Étrange enquête policière ou se croisent plusieurs effondrements, plusieurs compromissions, plusieurs errances.