Solving Crime In 1920s Munich

Think you’ve been plagued with a sense of dread and anxiety living in the current political climate in the United States of America? Try being in Germany in the 1920s and ’30s; specifically, Munich, where Sharon author Peter Steiner set his newest historical crime novel, “The Good Cop” (2019, Severn House Publishers LTD). It’s hard to imagine suspense could be built in such a story when every reader knows what is coming to the city, which like the rest of Germany is struggling to recover from World War I and its humiliating defeat. Yet Steiner manages not only to build suspense, but also to enlighten and surprise the reader with profound descriptions of the human backstories and the gathering storm that leads to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

Steiner centers his story around a young soldier and artist, Maximilian Wolf, who returns from the First World War with memories that are recorded in his sketchbook as well as his psyche, and Sophie Auerbach, a newspaper reporter who insists on digging out and writing about the truth as it exists on the gritty and violent streets of Munich, no matter how dangerous that task may be. When the 24-year-old Maximilian asks Sophie at their first meeting how old she is, she replies, “Twenty-five. Going on a hundred.” Here begins a plot that forms at street level, where Maximilian draws and Sophie writes for newspapers that are under duress from the growing fascism and corruption at every level of power in the city, and eventually reaches into the top echelons of the beginnings of the Third Reich.

The victims of crime are not the only ones who feel threatened in such an atmosphere. The police investigating those crimes are also at risk, especially when they get too close to those who are in the process of rebuilding a power structure around corruption and violent retribution. Yet there are those on the city’s police force, certainly a minority, who seek to maintain some semblance of civilization and continue to try to find a path to justice for those victims. They are the good cops, and chief among them is Detective Willi Geismeier, who sticks with his careful investigations no matter the obstacles and is unwavering in his dedication to serving those who have suffered at the hands of criminals, whoever those criminals might be.

The author includes an end note that clarifies some of the accurate historical scenes in the book, which are fascinating, and also compares the current world climate where news reporters are again under attack to what happened in Germany then. But this book is not just a cautionary tale. It stands on its own as a crime novel set in a time and place in history that was deeply fraught. Still, Steiner was able to make the lives of the characters real, and made caring about the outcome for each of them unavoidable. “The Good Cop” is well worth the read, and for fans of historical thrillers, the hope that there will be more to come from Detective Willi Geismeier in a continued series of books is good news.