The Good Cop

Set mainly in 1920 Munich, this promising series launch from Steiner (the Louis Morgon thrillers) introduces honest cop Willi Geismeier. As Adolf Hitler denounces the destructive forces of “the foreigners and the Jews,” sympathetic newspaper publisher Baron Detlev von Plottwietz determines to support that agenda in his publication, Das Neue Deutsche Bild. Shortly after von Plottwietz reprimands his editor, Erwin Czieslow, for printing stories criticizing Hitler, the offices of the newspaper are bombed, killing Czieslow and a young messenger and wounding others. The inquiry is assigned to Geismeier, who finds von Plottwietz’s indifference to the casualties suspicious and disagrees with his “obvious” conclusion that Jews and Bolsheviks were behind the bombing. When the policeman’s efforts to seek the truth point in a very different direction, his commitment to following that lead places his own job in jeopardy. Though the plotting and characterizations are less sophisticated than in Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels, Steiner nicely dramatizes the politics of early Weimar Germany. Readers will welcome Geismeier’s further adventures. [em]Agent: John Silbersack, Bent Agency. (Sept.) [/em]