Jonathan Rabb – författare

Berlin, 1927. When a studio executive at Ufa - the home of German Cinema - is found dead in his office bathtub, Herr Kriminal Oberkomissar Nikolai Hoffner is determined to uncover the truth behind what he firmly believes is murder. With the help of Fritz Lang, and Alby Pimm, the leader of the most powerful crime syndicate in Berlin, Hoffner finds his case taking him beyond the world of film and into the far more treacherous landscape of Berlin's sex and drug trade, the rise of Hitler's Brownshirts, and the even more astonishing attempts by onetime monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany. "Shadow and Light" is an electrifying thriller set in a darkly beautiful Berlin poised on the edge of destruction.

“Jonathan Rabb is one of my favorite writers, a highly gifted, heart-wise storyteller if ever there was one. What a powerful, moving book.” —David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning authorA moving novel about a Holocaust survivor’s unconventional journey back to a new normal in 1940s Savannah, Georgia   In late summer 1947, thirty-one-year-old Yitzhak Goldah, a camp survivor, arrives in Savannah to live with his only remaining relatives. They are Abe and Pearl Jesler, older, childless, and an integral part of the thriving Jewish community that has been in Georgia since the founding of the colony. There, Yitzhak discovers a fractured world, where Reform and Conservative Jews live separate lives--distinctions, to him, that are meaningless given what he has been through. He further complicates things when, much to the Jeslers'' dismay, he falls in love with Eva, a young widow within the Reform community. When a woman from Yitzhak''s past suddenly appears--one who is even more shattered than he is--Yitzhak must choose between a dark and tortured familiarity and the promise of a bright new life.      Set amid the backdrop of America''s postwar south, Among the Living grapples with questions of identity and belonging, and steps beyond the Jewish experience as it situates Yitzhak''s story during the last gasp of the Jim Crow era. Yitzhak begins to find echoes of his own experience in the lives of the black family who work for the Jeslers--an affinity he does not share with the Jeslers themselves. This realization both surprises and convinces Yitzhak that his choices are not as clear-cut as he might have thought.

It has long been rumoured that a sixteenth-century monk called Eisenreich out-Machiavellied Machiavelli, writing a masterplan for the Church to achieve world domination. So dangerous was the text that the Pope had to kill Eisenreich to suppress it. But when the bullet-riddled body of a young girl is found in the mid-West and "Eisenreich" is her dying word, it becomes terrifyingly clear that not only is the document real, but someone is planning to use it.Sarah Trent, a US agent, and Xander Jaspers, a Columbia University professor, race to find this manuscript, but neither fully understand the danger they're confronting as it has fallen into the hands of a cabal who intend to use it to rip society apart, and create a new world order.Trent and Jaspers make a quirky, entertaining team and the brilliant story line turns The Overseer into one of the best political thrillers of the decade.'Dazzling plot twists, highly sophisticated and diverting thriller, superior entertainment.' Washington Post Book World

After the mysterious death of one Vatican priest and the disappearance ofanother, Father Ian Pearse, an American working on early Christian textsin the Vatican, comes into possession of a mysterious scroll. Hediscovers ingeniously coded letters and the text of an ancient prayer never before found in written form.These reveal a conspiracy, by a sect long-thought dead, reaching deepinto the present Vatican hierarchy. It becomes a race against a ruthless unknown opponent, which takesFather Pearse from the Vatican, via an ancient Greek monastery, to war-torn Bosnia.

In November 1918, socialist revolution sweeps across Germany, transforming Berlin, already ravaged by war, into a political battleground. Four women from the slums are discovered dead, all with identical markings on their back. When the fifth turns out to be Rosa Luxemburg, a leader of the suppressed socialist uprising, the political police complicate the investigations of Detective Inspector Nicolai Hoffner and his assistant Hans Fichte.Rabb brings to life a world capital on the brink of chaos, a tragic revolutionary who inspired and enraged in equal measure, and a compellingly complex, world-weary, deeply flawed but brilliant inspector, Nikolai Hoffner."...a novel so richly drawn, so dark and so compelling it reaches into your gut and holds on tight..."Detroit Free Press"a ghostly noir that could have been conspired at by Raymond Chandler and Andre Malraux." Harper's"Rabb wields a deft and chilling pen."Richmond Times Dispatch"The hallmarks of Jonathan Rabb's writing are impeccable research, extraordinary attention to detail, superb style and a deep respect for his readers."Charles Middleburgh, Amazon.co.uk

Berlin 1927: when an executive at the newly-famous Ufa film studios is found dead in his bath, it falls to Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, of the Kriminalpolizei to investigate.With the help of the German film director Fritz Lang and the head of the most powerful crime syndicate, Hoffner finds his case reaches deep into Berlin's sex and drug trade, and into the political world of Hitler's Brownshirts (the SA).Caught up in this story is Hoffner's new lover, and his two sons, one of whom works for Joseph Goebbels. We last met Hoffner in Rosa (2007); his relationship with his sons develops menacingly in Shadow and Light.

On the Eve of Hitler's Olympics, Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner is forced out of the Kriminalpolizei because he is a half Jew. Hoffner is not surprised given the rise of Nazism, and anyway his focus is elsewhere. His son Georg is missing in Spain, swept up in the sudden outbreak of the civil war. He has already lost Sascha, his elder son, to the Nazi regime. But Georg is not what he appears to be, and when Hoffner discovers this, he is determined to save the one son he can.The Second Son is the final installment in Jonathan Rabb's Berlin trilogy, set between the two world wars. Now, nearly ten years after the events of Shadow and Light, Hoffner finds himself tossed into the chaos that is Spain - where he quickly meets anarchists, Soviet and British secret agents, and a female doctor called Mila Pera - as he follows a trail of clues left by Georg.Rabb delivers another brilliant atmospheric work.On Rosa: "a ghostly noir that could have been conspired at by Raymond Chandler and Andre Malraux." Harper'sOn Shadow and Light (2009), "brilliantly plotted narrative." Washington Post

In November 1918, socialist revolution sweeps across Germany, transforming Berlin, already ravaged by war, into a political battleground. Four women from the slums are discovered dead, all with identical markings on their back. When the fifth turns out to be Rosa Luxemburg, a leader of the suppressed socialist uprising, the political police complicate the investigations of Detective Inspector Nicolai Hoffner and his assistant Hans Fichte.

Berlin 1927: when an executive at the newly-famous Ufa film studios is found dead in his bath, it falls to Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, of the Kriminalpolizei to investigate. With the help of the German film director Fritz Lang and the head of the most powerful crime syndicate, Hoffner finds his case reaches deep into Berlin''s sex and drug trade, and into the political world of Hitler''s Brownshirts (the SA). Caught up in this story is Hoffner''s new lover, and his two sons, one of whom works for Joseph Goebbels. We last met Hoffner in Rosa (2007); his relationship with his sons develops menacingly in Shadow and Light.

On the Eve of Hitler''s Olympics, Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner is forced out of the Kriminalpolizei because he is a half Jew. Hoffner is not surprised given the rise of Nazism, and anyway his focus is elsewhere. His son Georg is missing in Spain, swept up in the sudden outbreak of the civil war. He has already lost Sascha, his elder son, to the Nazi regime. But Georg is not what he appears to be, and when Hoffner discovers this, he is determined to save the one son he can. Now, nearly ten years after the events of Shadow and Light, Hoffner finds himself tossed into the chaos that is Spain - where he quickly meets anarchists, Soviet and British secret agents, and a female doctor called Mila Pera - as he follows a trail of clues left by Georg. Rabb delivers another brilliant atmospheric work.

After the mysterious death of one Vatican priest and the disappearance of another, Father Ian Pearse, an American working on ancient Christian texts in the Vatican, comes into possession of a mysterious scroll. He discovers ingeniously coded letters and the text of an ancient Manichean prayer that has never before been found in written form. These reveal a Manichean conspiracy - a sect long-thought dead - reaching deep into the present Vatican hierarchy. Racing from the Vatican via an ancient Greek monastery to war-torn Bosnia, Father Pearse has to decipher the cryptograms and codes before the closely guarded heresy is unleashed on the world.