A Paragon of Virtue

By Christian von Ditfurth

One by one, over a period of several years, the wife and children of prominent Hamburg citizen Maximilian Holler are being slain. The police are stumped. Are the murders connected? Why would someone... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592642209
• ISBN13: 9781592642205
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Toby Pr
• Length: 329 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.3" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Tentacles From the Nazi Era

Stachelmann, the unlikely hero of this mystery set in 2001 in Germany, is a fortyish historian working at the lowest academic level because he can't get himself together enough to write the book that is necessary for a tenured appointment. He has major self-esteem issues and fears his own office because it contains all the documents that he has assembled (and never reviewed) heaped up in what he thinks of as "the mountain of shame." As if this weren't enough, his severe rheumatoid arthritis often makes performing his ordinary duties difficult and painful. Stachelmann gets drawn into a murder case after meeting a friend from his undergrad days for drinks. The friend is now a homicide cop in Hamburg and is working on a case of multiple murders. Over a two year period the wife and two of the three children of a successful, well-connected and revered real estate mogul have been killed. The cop is only venting because the case bothers him; but, when a piece of evidence may connect to the Nazi era, the cop asks Stachelmann (whose specialty is that period) what he makes of it. Soon Stachelmann concludes that the case is rooted in the Nazi past and the activities of the SS, the SA and the Gestapo. The police don't buy this and Stachelmann becomes nearly obsessed with the case, especially when he realizes (to his immense shock and terror) that he is in deadly danger himself. The story is a good one and shows how the Nazi past reaches into the German present and is still a major personal and cultural issue. The old cliché question "what did you do in the war, daddy" can raise sensitive and very painful issues for individuals, families and even governments (apparently government tax and finance records from the Third Reich are still closed to researchers because of what they show about theft of Jewish property---and those who did it). The book is translated from the German but for the most part flows well in English although there are dialogue passages that are a bit clunky. The latter may be because the dialogue has to be used to explain things about the Nazi era in the course of supposedly normal conversation, something that is, to say the least, unlikely to occur in real life. The main characters are well drawn for the most part and nobody is simple cardboard. It's a good story nicely told. Besides, we should all support any crime fiction that features an academic historian as a hero.

History haunts

I was quite pleased with this book. Professor Stachelmann is not your usual leading man. He's not a heartthrob, he doesn't have his act together, he's not powerful, heck, he's not even particularly healthy. But like many of the characters in this book, he feels real. I like how von Ditfurth writes the relationships between his characters. The initial meeting between Stachelmann and his old friend, Ossi, is just as awkward and uncomfortable as you'd expect. Stachelmann and Anne's flirty interactions run hot and cold as Stachelmann deals with his insecurities and indecision about her, but they always feel natural. He's not a smooth operator, nor does he pretend to be. Behind it all, Stachelmann is a historian, and he's driven by the search for the truth. He's not trying to figure out who's behind the murders for the sake of the father/husband, but because as details come to light, it's a mystery he can't help but try to solve. At the end, the mystery isn't so much about who, but about why. As things come to a conclusion, you discover that in Germany, some wounds may never heal. This is the first book I've read in a long time that didn't deal with Nazis in an overdone, cliche way. The German perspective really added something new for me.

thoroughly enjoyed this book

I love the foreign mysteries that are coming into print in English and this one I really enjoyed.

Excellent German Mystery

I read this book in the original German and found it very entertaining. It is enlightening about how much the past informs the present. Those who find comedic scenes set in Academia will find much to appreciate here as well.