The Widow Killer

Amazon.com
The bloody ironies of World War II have inspired several fine mysteries, including J. Robert Janes's books about a German and French pair of detectives (Mannequin, Salamander) and Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy. Now the noted Czech author and revolutionary Pavel Kohout adds his unique voice to this very select group. Her placid beauty (he could describe it no other way) was even more vivid in the near-darkness; her eternally sleepy voice moved him, though she was merely explaining that she had not been waiting long; no, she had just come outside, because it occurred to her they'd have trouble finding the house. He opened the rear right door for her and then got in on the other side. What sort of rare perfume was she wearing, he almost asked, before he realized that it was the smell of soap. That's Kohout (through translator Neil Bermel, who also did Kohout's previous novel, I Am Snowing) describing an encounter between a young and relatively idealistic Czech detective and a woman who might provide a clue to who in 1945 Occupied Prague is murdering and mutilating the widows of war heroes.

Like Janes, Kohout makes his two cops an intriguing set: the young Czech, Morava, is partnered with a Gestapo officer, Buback, who turns out to have Czech origins and a secret agenda. While ostensibly keeping an eye on the Prague police for his superiors, Buback is also helping his Czech comrades prepare for the day when Germany will be defeated. That's a lot of history and social significance for a mystery novel, but Kohout has the heart and muscle to hold it all together. --Dick Adler


The New York Times, Richard Bernstein
What starts out ... like a murder mystery, a taut and suspenseful thriller, turns into a powerful and gripping allegory by a writer steeped in the tragic lessons of Czechoslovak history.


From Booklist
Murder and national politics became inextricably intertwined in Prague in the waning months of World War II. The murder and ritualistic mutilation of a widowed German baroness by a Czech is the lever for the gestapo to send a top police official to work with, and infiltrate, the Czech police, thought to be the last bastion and source of weapons in the occupied nation. Then a trap to catch the serial killer tragically fails, only because of a gestapo raid on the Czech police. Unseasoned Czech detective Jan Morava, with the support of his politically savvy superintendent and the cooperation of gestapo chief inspector Erwin Buback, is renewed in his determination to hunt down the killer, but he is thwarted as Allied forces advance on the city and violence breaks out on both sides. Kohout moves skillfully from the mind of the demented killer communicating with his dead mother to military and resistance action to musings about the price of loyalty and the difference between carnage committed in peace and in the name of war. Michele Leber


From Kirkus Reviews
A powerful sense of the ambiguities of political and moral allegiance distinguishes this fascinating melodrama, translated into English for the first time, by the celebrated Czech playwright and novelist (I Am Snowing, 1994, etc.). Kohouts increasingly suspenseful and gripping story is set in Prague under German occupation. The year is 1945, and the Nazi high command is beginning to orchestrate a mass ``retreat'' designed to ``trap'' pursuing Allied forces. Simultaneously, a hunt is underway for the savage ``widow killer'' whose victims are left grotesquely mutilated. In beautifully handled parallel scenes, Kohout explores the wounded hearts and minds of his major characters: young Czech homicide detective Jan Morava, whose newfound romantic happiness will be crucially tested by the horrors of the case he's assigned; the Gestapo's liaison officer'' with the Czech authorities, the widower Erwin Bubacka conscience-ridden German struggling to elude complicity with his fatherland's crimes; and the eponymous murderer, a righteous psychotic whose motivations are unfortunately presented in delirious reveries that are both redundant and derivative (Kohout betrays considerable indebtedness to Thomas Harris's Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs). Still, the steps leading to the murders, and those depicting investigative procedures involving Czech and German authorities, are riveting; the characterizations (especially that of the idealistic, sadly disillusioned Morava) are distinctive and incisive; and Kohout raises his tale to an impressive level when the vainglorious ``widow killer'' resolves ``I AM THE NATION . . . . the new avenger of Czech shame.'' The story reaches a brilliant apex when Nazi attempts to evacuate Prague and the detectives' pursuit of their quarry dovetail in a fiery climax. It's arguable that Kohout spells out his message rather too explicitly (``The unknown and unpredictable widow slaughterer stripped the thin veneer of civilization from mankind and threatened to return humanity to its savage prehistory'')but enthralled readers aren't likely to object. A superb reimagining of modern history, skillfully transmuted into absorbing fiction. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"What starts out like a murder mystery, a taut and suspenseful thriller, turns into a powerful and gripping allegory by a writer steeped in the tragic lessons of Czechoslovak history."—The New York Times

"Kohout has created a gripping morality play deftly disguised as a ripping good yarn filled with intrigue, history, and fatal romance."—The Los Angeles Times.



Book Description
In the downward spiral of the Third Reich's final days, a sadistic serial killer is stalking the streets of Prague. The unlikely pair of Jan Morava, a rookie Czech police detective, and Erwin Buback, a Gestapo agent questioning his own loyalty to the Nazi's, set out to stop the murderer. Weaving a delicate tale of human struggle underneath the surface of a thrilling murder story, Kohout has created a memorable work of fiction



Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Czech


From the Publisher
"Kohout has created a gripping morality play deftly disguised as a ripping good yarn filled with intrigue, history, and fatal romance." --The Los Angeles Times "Chilling, suspenseful, and insightful...Kohout's novel combines the best aspects of a thriller with an unusual, highly entertaining moral intelligence." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "What starts out like a murder mystery, a taut and suspenseful thriller, turns into a powerful and gripping allegory by a writer steeped in the tragic lessons of Czechoslovak history." --Richard Bernstein, The New York Times


About the Author
Pavel Kohout was born in Prague in 1928. A leader of the Prague Spring of 1968, he was expelled from the Communist Party and his work suppressed for more than 20 years. With Vaclav Havel, he is responsible for the groundbreaking freedom document Charta 77. He is the author of I Am Snowing: The Confessions of a Woman of Prague, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Kohout divides his time between Vienna and Prague.



Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

A daring, moving, historically insightful novel of great distinction. Daring in it perspective, moving in its execution--one recognizes the dramatist at work--insightful in that it reveals the dangerous delusions of historical hubris. — Siegfried Lenz


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices