Andrea Maria Schenkel
Publisher: Quercus
ISBN: 9781623651671
Hardcover: 208 pages
Published: June 3rd 2014
Original Title: Tannöd
About the Book:
The Times Literary Supplement said of The Murder Farm, “With only a limited number of ways in which violent death can be investigated, crime writers have to use considerable ingenuity to bring anything fresh to the genre. Andrea Maria Schenkel has done it in her first novel.”My Thoughts:
The first author to achieve a consecutive win of the German Crime Prize, Schenkel has won first place for both The Murder Farm and Ice Cold.
The Murder Farm begins with a shock: a whole family has been murdered with a pickaxe. They were old Danner the farmer, an overbearing patriarch; his put-upon devoutly religious wife; and their daughter Barbara Spangler, whose husband Vincenz left her after fathering her daughter little Marianne. She also had a son, two-year-old Josef, the result of her affair with local farmer Georg Hauer after his wife’s death from cancer. Hauer himself claimed paternity. Also murdered was the Danners’ maidservant, Marie.
An unconventional detective story, The Murder Farm is an exciting blend of eyewitness account, third-person narrative, pious diatribes, and incomplete case file that will keep readers guessing. When we leave the narrator, not even he knows the truth, and only the reader is able to reach the shattering conclusion.
"Murder Farm" is unlike any other mystery that I've read. It starts with a farm scene and gives hints as what is really going on, then continues with interviews of people and finally you find out why you are being led down this path and what has happened and with an interesting conclusion.
I was fascinated with both the way the story unfolded and how I was fed things piece by piece until I saw the whole picture. By the time I was nearing the end, I couldn't put the book down and was reading it any chance I could get and sometimes it was only a page at a time as I tried to sneak it in between household chores.
I so want to tell more about this story, but I can't think how to without spoiling something. All I can say is this was a fascinating read and it comes highly recommended!!
"The Murder Farm" is a translation of the original book "Tannöd"
I received a copy of this book from NetGalley courtesy of the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review, but instead, one that gives my honest opinion.
No comments:
Post a Comment