A Trace of Smoke

Without ruining the suspense- It's 1931 in Berlin and Hannah Vogel, a crime reporter working under the pseudonym Peter Weill, is walking the Hall of the Unnamed Dead looking for a story when she's shocked to find a picture of her brother Ernst. Ernst a cross dressing cabaret singer, at the infamous El Dorado, had a very bad habit of getting involved with the wrong people. Hannah can't immediately report his death to the authorities, or even claim his body for burial, for no one must know, not even her sister.

Facing a city immobilized by staggering inflation and unemployment, the growth of Nazism and political corruption, Hannah has no one to turn to for help. Who can you trust when it is hard to know where the sympathies of even your show more co-workers lie, people you share your life with every day. Hannah's resolved to investigate Ernst's death on her own, jeopardizing her job and her already fragile relationship with friends and family. This historically accurate and suspenseful plot will have you racing through the pages.

Cantrell does an exceptional job of conveying the fear, isolation, and brutality of a pre Hitler Germany but she also deftly reveals the resolve and sacrifice it took to stand up and fight. It is hard to believe that this is a debut novel as it provides a lovely balance of political intrigue, mystery, history, and suspense. The amount of research Cantrell undertook to insure historical accuracy is impressive show less

4.5 Stars

Set in Berlin in 1931, Hannah Vogel is a crime reporter whose articles appear under the name of Peter Weill. When looking for inspiration for crime features, she visits the Hall of the Unnamed Dead at Alexanderplatz police station to investigate recent bodies discovered on Berlin’s streets. While studying the photos she is shocked to discover on of them is of Ernst, her homosexual brother recently pulled from the Spree river. She knows she can't go to the police. She and Ernst have loaned their identity papers to Jewish friends who have tried to escape to America, and this will come to light if she identifies Ernst’s picture. So she sets out to investigate the death herself, and risks her own life trying to decipher show more Ernst’s unorthodox life as an openly gay man who works as a cross-dressing night club singer and has a string of influential lovers, many of them prominent Nazi's.

Her investigations are complicated by the arrival of a five-year-old orphan who claims that Hannah is his mother and that her dead brother was his father. He has the birth certificate to prove it too. It soon becomes clear that Anton’s appearance is connected to her brother’s killing. Ernst is never alive during the story, but he is one of the most vivid characters in the book. His thoughts and comments made him such a vital part of the book.

This was an absolutely fascinating piece of historical fiction, merging both historical and fictitious characters. It provides a compelling portrait of day-to-day German life as the Nazis began their rise to power. Rebecca Cantrell writes an excellent story for those who enjoy historical fiction of this period. It's a completely different type of book and I enjoyed it immensely. I'm going to see if I can pick up a copy of the next book, Night of the Long Knives. show less

Crime reporter of the Berliner Tageblatt, Hannah Vogel, masquerades under the name Peter Weill to disguise the fact that the tough-writing hardened journalist is really only a woman, while her brother Anton disguises his manhood in the guise of a flamboyant cross-dressing lounge singer performing in the fashionable gay clubs of Berlin in the early 1930s.
When Hannah recognizes her brother’s photograph on display in the Hall of The Unnamed Dead in the basement of the Berlin police station, she is thrown in a mystery. It will take every ounce of the investigative reporter she really wants to be in order to discover how her younger brother’s body ended up in the river and placed alongside all the other unidentified bodies found by the show more police.
Fired from her job and on the run from Hitler’s storm troopers, her investigation leads her to top ranking gay Nazi party leaders such as Ernst Rohm. She attempts to blackmail Rohm over sexually graphic letters she discovered in her brother’s possession in order to coerce the truth while kidnapping a young boy that Rohm is using in order to present his more austere front.
Historically correct in the treatment of its setting from places to dates and politics to dramatics, “A Trace of Smoke” sucks you in like an unfiltered cigarette, burns as you breathe it out, but ultimately satisfies like only a true mystery can. show less

This book is basically the literary equivalent of a delicious bowl of ice cream. It has alllll the tropes: intrepid lady reporter, NAZIS, murdered drag queen, secret gay politicians, sexy rich sensitive gentleman with a yacht, priceless artifacts, the sudden appearance of a precocious orphan child and his teddy bear... it could be so cheesy but is actually wonderful and fun and exciting in all the best ways, thanks to the author's execution of the concept. It was the definition of a page-turner, too! A+ all around.

I've heard nothing but good things about Rebecca Cantrell's Hannah Vogel series, and I finally decided that it was time to put all that praise to the test. A Trace of Smoke passed with flying colors. What a sense of place and time! Reminiscent of "Cabaret," yet so much more. Cantrell makes crystal clear the grinding poverty, the sense of desperation and hopelessness that the vast majority of Germans had to face each and every day. Looming over all is an almost overwhelming feeling of tension and dread-- mostly brought on by my own knowledge of what is to come. That, to me, is one of the strengths of this book: Cantrell doesn't spell out this foreboding; she knows enough to state the facts and let the readers supply it for show more themselves.

Hannah is hampered in what she can do to investigate her brother's death because of her lack of identification. The reason why she doesn't have it proves which side of the Nazi question she's on. Furthermore, yes, her brother Ernst's life was "exotic," but that isn't the real issue here. His presence is clearly felt throughout the book because of Hannah's love and grief. I felt I knew this young man even though he's never seen alive. Another strong character is little Anton. He's an extremely brave, intelligent little boy who's experienced too much during his five years on earth.

Hannah is both the strength and the weakness in this book. The picture she paints of her world is vivid. I experienced what she lived through as I read each chapter. But Hannah's inner thoughts are a bit clunky from time to time. Too many scenes end with her in tears or almost in tears. It's far from being a deal breaker for me. If I had to live through what Hannah did, I'd be exhausted and probably on the verge of tears even before my brother was murdered.

What matters is that I was completely lost in Rebecca Cantrell's setting, characters, and story. She shows the best and the worst of the German character. In A Trace of Smoke, decent Germans-- Jew and Gentile alike-- are set against the Nazis, and I have to know what happens next. show less

I must admit that I was predisposed to like this book. I lived in Berlin for a little over a year in the early 70s, so I'm always interested in books set there. And of the many historical periods there are to choose from, my favorite has always been the forty years or so before I was born -- from just before World War I to just after World War II. So a book set in 1931 Berlin would get two stars before I even opened it. The other three were earned by Rebecca Cantrell's plotting, her recreation of the setting, and her ability to create complex characters.

Protagonist Hannah Vogel is a woman in her early 30s, and like many in her generation, unmarried because her fiance was killed in the Great War. She is the middle child in her family, show more between a stodgy, excessively conventional older sister and a younger brother who's a drag queen performing in one of Berlin's notorious clubs. Hannah is a crime reporter under an assumed man's name for one of the Berlin newspapers; and one morning, in the Hall of the Unnamed Dead at Alexanderplatz, she sees a photograph of her brother's body. There are reasons she can't identify him officially, so she begins trying to find out how he was killed. Then a small child shows up at her door with a birth certificate that says she is his mother and that her brother is his father. Caring for little Anton further complicates her life and investigation, as does her budding relationship with the father of a victim in one of the trials she covered. [b:A Trace of Smoke|5654142|A Trace of Smoke (Hannah Vogel)|Rebecca Cantrell|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OB-BCLJoL._SL75_.jpg|5825655] reads somewhat like a spy thriller, with Hannah unsure of whom she can trust and learning of her brother's connection to a well-known Nazi. It's often unwise of historical fiction writers to involve too many actual historical figures, but in this case Cantrell has chosen wisely. Her historical figure is Ernst Rohm, the leader of Hitler's SA (Sturmabteilung) and someone whose life was lived at least partly in the shadows. In this way the book is like [a:Ariana Franklin|49612|Ariana Franklin|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1234751271p2/49612.jpg]'s [b:City of Shadows|28695|City of Golden Shadow (Otherland, #1)|Tad Williams|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1230504146s/28695.jpg|1570074], where the historical figure is a claimant to be Anastasia. Although both are set in Berlin in the 30s, and both are excellent books, they are very different. In [b:A Trace of Smoke|5654142|A Trace of Smoke (Hannah Vogel)|Rebecca Cantrell|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OB-BCLJoL._SL75_.jpg|5825655], Hannah Vogel is still able to hope, against mounting evidence, that the German people will repudiate the Nazis. I'll be interested to see if Cantrell writes any more about Hannah Vogel, as there are so many ways her life can go from the end of the book. I'll definitely want to read whatever Cantrell's next book may be. show less

Just when you think you know where this story is going, it changes course. Rebecca Cantrell has written a riveting murder mystery so rich in period detail you’ll feel you’re in Berlin circa 1931. A Trace of Smoke is the award-winning writer’s debut novel but doesn’t read like it. The structure, story and surprises are exemplary.

The Nazis are on the rise and the it’s almost as though Decadent Berlin is having its last hoorah. Hannah is a good friend, free of the angst of many male murder-mystery protagonists. Hannah and her brother, Ernst, have lent their identity papers to their friends Sarah and Tobias, a Jewish couple who have fled to the United States to get away from rising anti-Semitism.

Not having her identity papers show more means Hannah can’t go to the police when she finds out her brother, Ernst, a singer in a gay nightclub, has been murdered. Finding the culprit is further complicated by a five-year-old boy, Anton, turning up on her doorstep. He claims she is his mother and has a document to ‘prove’ it.

Hannah’s investigation takes her to the heights of the Nazi party. The persistent pervasion of fear and foreboding is one of the novel’s many strengths.

Murder-mystery fans will enjoy this as will people, such as myself, who are interested in the Weimar Republic. I enjoyed this and am looking forward to reading the second in the Hannah Vogel series, A Night of Long Knives. show less