Smrt u Breslauu

The story takes place in Breslau (today's Wrocław) in May 1933, immediately after the Nazis came to power – the city is in an atmosphere of fear, Gestapo repression, anti-Semitism, corruption and political terror.

Criminal worker Eberhard Mock, a cynical, intelligent and immoral police inspector (alcoholic, corrupt, sadist), takes over the investigation of a brutal murder. In the luxurious salon car of the Berlin–Breslau train, the mutilated bodies of seventeen-year-old Mariette von der Malten, the daughter of a prominent baron and aristocrat, and her governess (or maid) are found. The bodies are grotesquely mutilated: the abdomens have been slit open, and live scorpions are writhing in their entrails. A cryptic message written in blood – in an unknown (allegedly oriental) language – and symbolic elements that point to a ritual, revengeful murder were left next to the corpses.

Mock, with the help of a young assistant, Herbert Anwaldt (who comes from far away and has his own secrets), enters the dark world of the investigation. The case quickly becomes politically explosive: the Nazis want a quick culprit - they accuse an epileptic Jew in order to exploit the propaganda. Mock, however, doubts the simple solution and digs deeper: he uncovers links to secret societies, Freemasonry, old family curses and revenge that goes back centuries (perhaps to medieval persecutions or sectarian conflicts).

Mock uses brutal methods - blackmail, torture, connections to the underworld, brothels and corrupt powerful people - to get to the truth. The novel is full of the decadence of the Weimar era in the transition to Nazism: prostitution, perversions, alcohol, violence, espionage and moral decay. Mock is not a classic hero - he is a cynical opportunist surviving in a hellish system, but the case confronts him with his own demons.