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Good detective, great lover
By Tara McKelvey |
February 13, 2011, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IN Graham Greene's novel "The Quiet American," a police officer is "incongruously" smitten with his wife, a flashy blonde said to be sleeping with his subordinates. But the policeman turns out to be an uncommonly good detective, since, as Greene argued, "you cannot love without intuition." In "The Second Son," Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner is also skilled at reading people (he recognizes a British spy in minutes), and he too has a great capacity for love.
Fascism and anarchy in 1930s Spain combine with romantic entanglement to provide the action in Jonathan Rabb's novel, the final volume in a trilogy of historical thrillers. Now 62, Hoffner has lost his job as a police detective in Berlin, and his younger son, a journalist, has disappeared in Spain.
In the course of his inquiries, Hoffner teams up with a pale, blue-eyed doctor, Mila, who keeps a rifle at her desk and remains calm even when surrounded by bandit anarchists. His passion for her apparently derives from a desire to protect: he wants to shield women from danger, although he doesn't seem very good at it. In the trilogy's first novel, "Rosa," Hoffner's wife was butchered; in the second, "Shadow and Light," his lover was found dead, shot with a single bullet, in a bathtub.
"The Second Son" is an unusual blend of hard-boiled detective novel and love story, and it's unconventional in other ways. By 1936, Nazism has set its mark on Europe, a crime so monstrous that it's beyond Hoffner's abilities to comprehend. Yet in a low-key way, and despite his lack of official sanction, he is still pursuing investigations.
Hoffner discovers that his missing son has become involved with spies, gunrunners and fascists. Determined to save him, Hoffner senses that such a small redemption may begin to help him make sense of larger events.
"The Second Son" lacks the concentrated energy of its predecessors, which are both set in Hoffner's native country. As a sweaty German ex-cop in Zaragoza, he doesn't have the same allure that he mustered during his heyday in Berlin. Yet Rabb still steers him into some sharp scenes and snappy dialogue. He also captures the seedy appeal of some of the places where Hoffner conducts his investigations. Although its prose occasionally ventures into Danielle Steel territory, the narrative never flags. It proves that first-rate detectives are like good lovers and good novelists: keenly observant, intuitive and tough as nails.
Fascism and anarchy in 1930s Spain combine with romantic entanglement to provide the action in Jonathan Rabb's novel, the final volume in a trilogy of historical thrillers. Now 62, Hoffner has lost his job as a police detective in Berlin, and his younger son, a journalist, has disappeared in Spain.
In the course of his inquiries, Hoffner teams up with a pale, blue-eyed doctor, Mila, who keeps a rifle at her desk and remains calm even when surrounded by bandit anarchists. His passion for her apparently derives from a desire to protect: he wants to shield women from danger, although he doesn't seem very good at it. In the trilogy's first novel, "Rosa," Hoffner's wife was butchered; in the second, "Shadow and Light," his lover was found dead, shot with a single bullet, in a bathtub.
"The Second Son" is an unusual blend of hard-boiled detective novel and love story, and it's unconventional in other ways. By 1936, Nazism has set its mark on Europe, a crime so monstrous that it's beyond Hoffner's abilities to comprehend. Yet in a low-key way, and despite his lack of official sanction, he is still pursuing investigations.
Hoffner discovers that his missing son has become involved with spies, gunrunners and fascists. Determined to save him, Hoffner senses that such a small redemption may begin to help him make sense of larger events.
"The Second Son" lacks the concentrated energy of its predecessors, which are both set in Hoffner's native country. As a sweaty German ex-cop in Zaragoza, he doesn't have the same allure that he mustered during his heyday in Berlin. Yet Rabb still steers him into some sharp scenes and snappy dialogue. He also captures the seedy appeal of some of the places where Hoffner conducts his investigations. Although its prose occasionally ventures into Danielle Steel territory, the narrative never flags. It proves that first-rate detectives are like good lovers and good novelists: keenly observant, intuitive and tough as nails.
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