| Title | : | Stasi Vice (Reim #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 205 |
| Publication | : | Published October 18, 2018 |
But when a senior officer has a messy affair, it falls to Reim to do the clearing up. It should be a straightforward job. Lean on a few people to get them to shut up. Intimidate neighbours, bribe officials and appeal to the socialist conscience of Party members. But when Reim starts his interrogations, he realises his boss is hiding more than just a lover.Lieutenant Reim begins to investigate his superior—and what he uncovers puts his own life at risk. Cracking DDR crime from the author of the East Berlin Series Large print version
Stasi Vice (Reim #1) Reviews
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What a riveting read!
This was my first Max Hertzberg novel, but won’t be my last.
I find that the ending is always the part of a novel that the author seems to struggle with; not with Stasi Vice. The pace throughout the book just builds and builds, right up to the last page.
What a riveting read!
Regards,
Peter -
The plot is flimsy, to say the least, and the characters are stereotypical. This is a book full of clichés and, when you finally finish it, you feel as if you'd like your money back.
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Couldn't agree more with Phil Hendrick.
Feels almost like a waist of time. -
Easy-reading, entertaining East German mystery
Karl Peter Reim is the hard-boiled detective in the East German secret police, called the Stasi. He is charged (somewhat inexplicably) by his boss to find out what people are saying about an affair the boss is having. Reim reluctantly sets out on the case which is unexpectedly surprising along the way.
Reim is an well-developed complex character. Kind of an anti-hero type. He likes his job, but he’s a tough guy who likes “leaning” on people to get them to talk. He likes cultivating contacts, which means blackmailing them to get info. He’s not a nice guy. No surprise he has a disastrous marriage and doesn’t seem too happy on a personal level. Yet his job in the Stasi makes him tick.
Increasingly, I enjoy this genre of East European mysteries, and this one fits the type well. Hertzberg delivers and easy-reading, entertaining yarn. I’ll continue to follow Reim’s exploits. -
Pretty good; 3.5 stars. Another in the several police series in which a reasonably honest cop works in a dictatorship (eg Kerr’s Bernie Gunther books). Something tricky is going on in the STASI and Reim starts pulling on strings, finding his boss playing both sides of the street. One narrative problem is that the GDR is so grey and bureaucratic that there’s a lot of dealing with files and the procedures for getting anything done. The ending comes out of left field and the business of the fallen envelope is too lucky.
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Stasi Vice is a decent thriller set in East Berlin 1983. Reim (the hero - main character) sets off on what can only be described as a 'Cook's tour' of the city on a mysterious mission ordered by his boss, a Stasi major.
It's fairly pedestrian for most of the time with much repetition but, as the end approaches, it becomes quite interesting and the climax is fairly exciting. Enough, it seems, to persuade me to read the next in the series.
David Lowther. Author of The Blue Pencil, Liberating Belsen, Two Families at War and the Summer of '39, all published by Sacristy Press -
I read this book because I like Berlin having visited many times and thoroughly enjoyed all the Bernie Gunter novels, Volker Kutscher novels featuring Gereon Rath and David Young's books about the Stasi. It's an odd book like nothing I have read before. The basic plot is fair enough but it is a short novel with very little in the way of characterisation. Max Hertzberg obviously knows a lot about the Stazi, I would like to have had a bit more detail regarding the people appearing in the novel. I think the Glossary at the end was probably the most interesting part.
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I rated this book the same as Mr. David Lowther (see below) for much the same reasons he did. The subject matter is interesting, and the descriptions of life in East Berlin (GDR) gives the reader a pretty dim view of communist socialism. I can't say I want to spend any more time with 2nd Lt Reim, but I might come back to book 2. For right now-- one and done!
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Very interesting surroundings, but still weird to have any empathy for a Stasi policeman. The pacing was also a little strange, it ended pretty abruptly. Good enough that I’ll buy the second book though.
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Very enjoyable - looking forward to the rest of the series.
DDR crime - shades of Kerr's Gunther.
Very good! -
Interesting take on the crime novel. This one set in East Germany prior to the fall of the regime. Great plot with a surprising twist at the end.
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This is a very valiant effort, and one feels with a little more effort to tighten up the plot this could have been much better. The attention to the smaller details of life in the GDR is a highlight.
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Author, Max Hertzberg, used his experience as a Stasi officer in the now defunct GDR to build a detailed and, to me, fascinating account of the travails of a young intelligence ministry officer, Hans-Peter Reim. Stasi Vice is the first of a series in which the hard-boiled, hard drinking Reim schemes, cheats and twists the bureaucratic security apparatus to satisfy an "operational objective" which he has made a personal obsession.
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A taught thriller steeped in East German ambiance.
