The Constant Man

by Peter Steiner

Overview

Former Munich police detective Willi Geismeier is drawn out of hiding to find a deranged serial killer.

Former Munch detective Willi Geimeiser is a wanted man. He sacrificed his career and put his life on the line by exposing a high-ranking Nazi official as a murderer, and is now in hiding in a cabin deep in the Bavarian forest.

But when his friend, Lola, is savagely attacked, Willi returns to Munich in disguise and under a new identity - Karl Juncker - determined to find the perpetrator. Meanwhile, the discovery of the body of a woman in the River Isar leads Willi's old colleague and friend, Detective Hans Bergemann, to uncover similar disturbing murders stretching back years. A serial killer who preys on young women is running loose on Munich's streets. Could they be responsible for the attack on Lola, and can Willi catch a deranged murderer before the Gestapo catches him?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448306176
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	01/27/2022
Series:	A Willi Geismeier thriller , #2
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.55(w) x 8.74(h) x (d)

About the Author

Peter Steiner is the author of the critically acclaimed Louis Morgon series of crime novels. He is also a cartoonist for The New Yorker and is the creator of one of the most famous cartoons of the technological age which prompted the adage, 'On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.'

Editorial Reviews

Impressive . . . A precisely written, carefully plotted novel, all the more dramatic for its understated tone

Booklist on The Good Cop

Taut . . . Steiner maintains suspense - Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Steiner writes with crisp prose, using just a few crucial sentences to set a scene and unfurl the action . . . He does an excellent job of developing our empathy for each of the principal characters

Historical Novel Society on The Good Cop

04/26/2021

Set in Nazi Germany, Steiner’s taut sequel to 2019’s The Good Cop finds Willi Geismeier no longer a member of the Munich police force. Because he implicated a high-ranking Nazi official, one of Hitler’s favorites, in a string of killings and rapes, he’s on the run from his former colleagues, the SS, and the Gestapo. Willi takes refuge with an old school friend in the Bavarian Forest, but he comes out of hiding after his bar manager friend, Lola Zeff, is attacked and injured by a stranger on a Munich street. Despite his own fugitive status, Willi investigates, only to suspect that the assault is the work of a serial killer being hunted by his former partner on the force. Scenes from the murderer’s perspective ratchet up the tension. The plot is more of a cat-and-mouse game than a whodunit, but Steiner maintains suspense even after the identity of Lola’s assailant is revealed. Though the challenges of searching for the truth amid the brutality of the Nazi regime aren’t conveyed at the same level as Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels, this still satisfies. Agent: John Silbersack, Bent Agency. (June)

Publishers Weekly

01/01/2021

Former Munich detective Willi Geimeiser wrecked his career by exposing a high-ranking Nazi official as a murderer and is now hiding in the Bavarian forest. But not for long: when his friend Lola is attacked, he returns to Munich in disguise to pursue a serial killer. Geimeister's series launch, The Good Cop, received an LJ-starred review.

Library Journal

2021-03-17
A former police detective hunts a serial rapist in Nazi Germany.

Now that he’s identified high-ranking Nazi official Otto Bruck as a serial murderer and rapist in The Good Cop (2019), Munich detective Willi Geismeier has been forced to leave his police job and his home. Still feeling responsible for finding the man who attacked Lola Zeff, he returns secretly to Munich, living under the alias Karl Juncker, to find him. As he does his best to lie low, rising Nazi aggression and internal turmoil repeatedly put Willi’s quest on the back burner. Steiner’s brief chapters create a tapestry of Germany under the rising influence of the Gestapo. Ambitious storm trooper Lt. Walter Kempf arrests fellow Nazi Ernst Röhm for being homosexual as part of a project called Operation Hummingbird. DS Hermann Gruber worries that his wife, Mitzi, is in danger because of her Jewish heritage. Storm trooper Heinz Schleiffer is surprised to find his adult son, Tomas, at a show of “degenerate art” put on by Joseph Goebbels and disturbed to learn that Tomas opposes the Nazis. The intellectual Reinhard Pabst is lukewarm about the Nazi cause but attracted by the power his allegiance to the Führer provides. Willi does have his allies: Lola is anxious for closure, and his landlady, Frau Schimmel, informs him of visitors who come looking for him. His investigation gains traction with the discovery of more victims. All too often, though, Steiner’s cursory attempts to provide a more complex depiction of Germany in this era distract attention from Willi’s pursuit of a serial killer.

A brisk if uneven thriller peppered with historical detail about Nazi Germany.

Kirkus Reviews