Friday, February 10, 2012

Children of Wrath-Paul Grossman

Children of Wrath


Paul Grossman

St. Martin’s, Feb 28 2012, $25.99

ISBN: 9780312601911



In 1929 as the world economies collapse due to the failures of the finance system, Berlin police Detective Willi Kraus struggles with the anti-Semitism of his Aryan peers and superiors. Ebbing of flood water leaves a burlap sack behind. Kraus looks inside and sees boiled human bones macabrely sewed together bound together by thread made from muscle tissue and a bible extract circling the phrase “children of wrath”. However, his being Jewish has his boss assign him an inquiry into tainted sausages that has poisoned hundreds.



Though he knows his heritage and religion has left him in precarious danger of being fired, Kraus works the human bones case without official sanctioning and over the objection of his wife who fears his actions will harm their children as the Nazis meteoric rise to power uses the Jews as their fuel. Kraus soon concludes this Kinderfesser Child Eater cannot do it alone



Fans who read The Sleepwalkers, which occurs in 1932, know the outcome of the horrific Kinderfresser serial killings, but that will not matter as this is a great historical mystery. The storyline brings to life the Weimer Republic at a time when the Great Depression has devastated global economics even more so in Germany and the Nazis are beginning to rise to power. With a Jeffrey Dahmer type killer based on a statue in Bern, readers will relish the actions of the diligent Jewish police detective working a particularly nasty case in a hostile prejudicial environment that threatens his family as much as himself.



Harriet Klausner

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