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| Plot Summary of The Pale Criminal |
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"Two years after the events in _March Violets_, in August to October 1938, things are getting worse in Germany. Private eye Bernie Gunther has taken on another good ex-cop as his partner, Bruno Stahlecker, but Bruno is killed on a stakeout. The two have been working on what looks like a fairly simple blackmail situation (someone is leaning on the wealthy mother of a homosexual male by selling back his love letters to a male doctor), but then Bernie is tapped by none other than Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich for a much bigger job: catching the serial sex murderer who is taking down blonde Aryan teenage girls in Berlin and making fools of the police. Bernie has no choice but to accept the temporary post of Kriminalkommissar in Heydrich's state Security Service, with a team of men underneath him that he's not sure he can trust any more than his superiors. Our hero finds himself wallowing through some of the grimiest sectors of the Nazi hierarchy in search of the man or men who are killing young girls (and, it turns out were responsible not only for his partner's death, but the unexplained disappearance of his beloved Inge in the first book). "
David Loftus, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of The Pale Criminal |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Composition of Book
descript. of violence and chases - 30%
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 40%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 20%
How society works & physical descript. (people, objects, places) - 10%
Tone of story
- Dry-cynical
Time/era of story:
- 1930's-1950's
Spying/Terrorism Thriller
Yes
Cloak & Dagger Plotlets:
- power struggle within govt between two factions
What % of story relates directly
to the mystery, not the subplot?
- 70%
Misc. Murder Plotlets
- Big focus on forensic evidence
Kind of investigator
- hard boiled/private eye
Kid or adult book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Any non-mystery subplot?
- minority/women/homosexual issues
Crime Thriller
Yes
Who's the terrorist enemy here?
- evil subgroup in own govt
Murder Mystery (killer unknown)
Yes
Search for technology?
- state secrets
Main Character
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- private investigator
Age:
- 20's-30's
How much violence does he/she use?
- a significant amount
Ethnicity/Race
- German
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- killer
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- a little/some
Motive of antagonist
- insanity
The antagonists are:
- nazis
Setting
Europe
Yes
European country:
- Germany
City?
Yes
City:
- dangerous
Style
Part of a series?
Yes
Person
- mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- very gorey descriptions deaths/dead bodies
How many deaths?
- 8 or more
Sex
Yes
What kind of sex:
- descript of kissing
- actual description of sex
- descript. of breasts
Unusual forms of death
- asphyxiation
- perforation--bullets
- perforation--swords/knives
Unusual form of death?
Yes
Amount of dialog
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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