Jonathan Rabb - Böcker

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.

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.