Babylon Berlin cover art

Babylon Berlin

Gereon Rath, Book 1

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Babylon Berlin

By: Volker Kutscher
Narrated by: Mark Meadows
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About this listen

Berlin, 1929. Detective Inspector Rath was a successful career officer in the Cologne Homicide Division before a shooting incident in which he inadvertently killed a man. He has been transferred to the vice squad in Berlin, a job he detests even though he finds a new friend in his boss, Chief Inspector Wolter.

There is seething unrest in the city, and the Commissioner of Police has ordered the vice squad to ruthlessly enforce the ban on May Day demonstrations. The result is catastrophic, with many dead and injured, and a state of emergency is declared in the Communist strongholds of the city.

When a car is hauled out of Berlin's Landwehr Canal with a mutilated corpse inside, the Commissioner decides to use this mystery to divert the attention of press and public from the casualties of the demonstrations. The biggest problem is that the corpse cannot be identified.

Volker Kutscher was born in 1962 in Lindlar, West Germany. He is the author of the enormously successful Gereon Rath crime series which, in addition to compelling narrative, is notable for its scrupulous accuracy about Germany in the years between its beginning in 1927 and the approach to the Second World War.

©2016 Volker Kutscher (P)2016 Audible, Ltd Historical International Mystery & Crime Modern Detectives Mystery Police Procedural Fiction Exciting City

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All stars
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excellent mixture of crime and politics set in a a very mixed up period of history

first class

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Taking you further back into the 1920's Germany and crime. A great first story of this up and coming Detective Inspector. A growing love story too. Full of action and grim crime. Enjoy.

Ripping Entertainment.

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I bought this book having seen the exceptionally good German TV production of the same name. Their attention to detail and historical accuracy was way up there with the very best albeit the story differed from the book slightly. My confusion really is with the ability of the books author to capture the environment of 1920's Berlin, or not as it happens. The story is a good one, most of the characters are well crafted and the period is fascinating particularly from a German perspective however its written in an American style modern procedural detective style complete with forensic departments and paramedics none of which existed at that time, indeed the entire narrative was littered with this type of misnomer.

All in all lazy research spoilt what should have been a particularly good book.

Confusing delivery of a good story.

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I enjoyed the story but really disliked the narration, The strong English regional accents means that the atmosphere of Berlin post WW1 is completely lost. I think I’ll try the second book in Kindle to see if I can “take to” Gereon Rath a bit more .

Dreadful accents …

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too many pointless location addresses given, no point to the location unless you're interested in 1929 Berlin

long winded

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Enjoyed this but some of the names were hard to follow.
Narrator is excellent.
I have watched the TV series based on this and there are differences but both have their charm.

A great story

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Mark Meadows narrates the lengthy book with great aplomb. The writing is excellent, as is the story, but you really need to pay attention as the story is labyrinthine in scope, made all the more complex by the lengthy list of German and Russian characters, and the names of the German streets. The book has made me want to watch its namesake German series.

Complex tale.

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I found this book to be very enjoyable but not genuinely gripping.

The atmosphere of 1920's Berlin comes through strongly which is just as well because the plot and characters are not particularly memorable.

The characters are the usual police procedural line up: lonely male with troubled past; senior officer showing him how to bend the rules; politically minded police chiefs; independent and very gorgeous young woman ; pseudo-sophisticated crime lord . . . I felt it was only the historical context which lifted the book. The Nazis, the communists and the ravers prowling the city were the most enjoyable parts of the book.

Narration is excellent and I will probably go on to explore the series.

Atmospheric, yet predictable, police procedural

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Easy to see why this has made it to TV. Good characters, excellent story line overlayed with a evocative historical backdrop.
Some elements of the storyline are weaker than others with slow passages and some predictability. However generally the narrative moves along quickly and with style.
Well worth a listen!

Evocative Crime Story Set in a Berlin Recovering from one ear just before another.

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A great story between the war years in Germany .
Telling us how things were and why the nazis came to power

Informative novel

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