It all started with a phone call: a 5-year-old boy disappeared during a garage sale organized in the courtyard of his school, in Frankfurt, the time that his mother and his big sister went to deposit objects inside .
The only clue that the two investigators in charge of the case manage to find comes from a surveillance camera, in the form of a teddy bear. The police, however, manage to establish a link with a similar disappearance that occurred a year earlier, in Austria, and which opens an unexpected door for them.
The author has already written an award-winning detective story series that has been very successful in Germany, but this thriller is quite independent. Beyond the plot and its very ordinary investigators – at least, apparently -, we navigate through a fragmented narration that jumps from one point of view to another and constantly alternates between the different characters, a process that quickly becomes repetitive. Short sentences and a jerky rhythm which mark the tempo of a growing tension also build a heavy and tense atmosphere, and a telegraphic style which could please … or quite the opposite.
Summer at night
Jan Costin Wagner
South Acts
288 pages