Dr. B.

A superb thriller, a cross between Tom Stoppards Travesties and The Thirty-Nine Steps, full of mysteries, twists and turns You cant put it down. This is an astonishing debut and Daniel Birnbaum is clearly a talent to look out for The Jewish Chronicle If youre looking for a ridiculously brilliant story, you can stop looking Hes got the worlds best story hes got Dr B Svenska Dagbladet Dr B is an astonishing thriller-novel reminiscent of both Hjalmar Sderbergs Doctor Glass as well as the dreamy melancholy in The Rings of Saturn by W.G Sebald This moral ambiguity makes Dr. B. no less fascinating a character than Stefan Zweigs version of the same Aftonbladet A moving evocation of a life beset by conflicts in a troubled time Kirkus Reviews Illuminating Birnbaum skillfully delineates the social and political tensions shaping a culture caught between the national interests of Germany and Russia, and he poignantly conveys the plight of individuals for whom each day is a potential tragedy waiting to happen Publishers Weekly Who was Dr. B.? A spy? A member of the resistance? A journalist manipulated by competing political forces in the Casablanca of the North that was Stockholm during World War II? Dr. B brings to life the feverish atmosphere of the capital where Immanuel Birnbaum becomes entangled in a whirlwind of confusing intrigue Le Monde A spy novel as complex as it is captivating Dr. B. evokes so vividly the apocalyptic chaos of 1939-40 Stockholm, where different political forces jockey for power and Immanuel Birnbaum, Dr. B, finds himself caught in the confusion Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Daniel Birnbaum, b. 1963, is heralded as one of the worlds most prominent art curators and currently director of Acute Art in London. He has previously managed both museums and art schools in Germany and Italy and he curated the Venice Biennale. Daniel is a contributing editor to Artforum in New York and contributes regularly to numerous British and American art magazines including Frieze. ArtReview (London) has regularly listed him among the hundred most influential people in the art world, and the year he curated the Venice Biennale he was listed as number 4 in the world. DR. B. is his first work of fiction, and it tells the story of his grandfather Immanuel Birnbaum.