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Summer 1936. German-American mob hitman Paul Schumann is sent to Berlin to assassinate Reinhardt Ernst, architect of rearmament in Hitler's Germany. Schumann is told that if he succeeds, he will be given a large sum of money and his record will be expunged. If he doesn't agree to go, prison and the electric chair are waiting for him. He accepts his role as a freelance sportswriter and travels on the ship that is taking the US Olympic team, coaches and hangers-on to Germany. Schumann meets his contact, but not before the contact murders someone who gets to the meeting place first, but with the wrong passwords. Shortly afterwards, Willi Kohl, a conscientious German policeman and his young assistant, Janssen, happen on the murder scene. On interviewing people in the adjoining cafe, Kohl gets a partial description of the purported murderer, a large man wearing a hat like Goring wears. The hat turns out to be a stetson and Kohl and Janssen start tracking Schumann, who by now, has taken a room in a boarding house near the Tiergarten (Garden of Beasts) There are enough twists and turns to give the most die-hard thriller fan a frisson down his spine, and the feeling in 1936 Germany comes through very strongly. Schumann and Kohl are well matched antagonists. Each of them has his own sense of righteousness and justice, and both of them find the Nazis repugnant. Some humanity is added to the character of Kohl by showing his relationship with his son, who is having trouble at school because Willi will not allow him to join the Hitler Youth. The main thing that took me out of the narrative flow of this book was the insistence on using English translations of all the German terms -- Heil become Hail; Unter den Linden becomes Under the Lindens Street, and so on. I found myself re-translating back into the more familiar German terms. Deaver is a very skilful writer, but GARDEN OF BEASTS left me feeling manipulated. Let's face it, not all German civilians were Nazis but neither were all of them sympathetic to the other side. Many of them gave up their Jewish neighbors so they could loot the possessions of the imprisoned. And by 1936, many of them were supporters of Hitler and his machinations. After all, they had been humiliated at Versailles. Stick to the Lincoln Rhyme books. This one is not as good.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, September 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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