Will Marek Krajewski manage to create an equally intriguing, full-bodied character as the criminal counsel Eberhard Mock, who – apart from the city of Breslau – plays the main hero of his criminal tetralogy? It's hard to say. One thing is certain however: after reading Festung Breslau, which concludes this series of novels, many readers will yearn for Mock's return. The action of Krajewski's new book is played out in the spring of 1945, when the Soviet armies are besieging the criminal counsellor's hometown, now transformed into a fortress. Mock is by now 62 and more and more feeling his age, tormented by the scars on his marred face, but still remaining witty and elegant. And even though his world is falling apart literally under his very eyes, he is doing his best to ensure that justice triumphs. His latest investigation begins when he finds an injured, brutally raped young girl who dies in his arms. During the tangled investigation, hindered by the war waging around him, Mock has to determine who is the oppressor and who the victim, who is the tool and who the hand that guides it - whether it’s the aristocratic and antifascist religious crank being held in a camp or the cruel SS man, commander of that camp. Obviously the criminal counsel will not rest until he has found and unmasked the guilty parties, though this will cost him dearly. Again he will have to descend into ever-greater depths of hellish evil, magnified by the confusion of war. Festung Breslau, like the three previous books in the series, is a perfectly constructed novel, in which even the smallest elements of the crime puzzle lock together with precision. Krajewski has also been successful in his thumbnail descriptions showing the agony of the city, destroyed both by its defenders and aggressors. It really is a shame this will be our last meeting with criminal counsel Eberhard Mock.
Robert Ostaszewski
Marek Krajewski (1966 - ) Author of crime novels, classic philologist and member of the scientific staff at Wrocław University. His series of books about Eberhard Mock have been very well received both by the critics and the reading public and translated into such languages as German, Russian, Lithuanian, Spanish and Dutch.
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