Babylon Berlin is set in the city in the 1920s, a seismic period in European history immortalised in the writings of Stephen Isherwood, in the musical Cabaret, and now in the television spin off Babylon Berlin, a visually stunning evocation of the period, replete with dark moody skies, political revolutionaries, and psychotic industrialists intent on world domination. It’s an exciting and shocking period of history that has many parallels with our own time.
Berlin is in the throes of political upheaval, and when there is rioting on the streets the Social Democrat police chief puts it down with brutal violence. White Russians seeking respite from the horrors of Stalin’s Russia have come to Berlin, hoping to reclaim the millions in gold they left behind. The Nazis are on the rise, their insignia and displays of Teutonic militarism beginning to take a strangle hold on the streets. Gangsters control the city’s decadent nightlife – the prostitution, drugs and wild parties – whilst the political police attempt to keep tabs on a rag bag of dissidents, violent thugs and corrupt police officers.
Into all of this walks Gareon Rath, the son of a provincial police inspector who has disgraced himself in his own town and been sent to Berlin for a fresh start. If only!!
Rath is an outsider par extraordinaire, a lone wolf detective who treads his own path across the mean streets of Berlin. His first task with the vice squadron involves breaking up a ring of pornographers making blue movies. There is comedy here as they burst into a room full of men dressed as Kaiser Wilhelm and other German luminaries. The men are engaged in titillating acts with half dressed women, but the writer has no time to dwell on the details: the police raid leads immediately to a chase across Berlin’s night sky, a gunshot and a lesson for Rath in the ways and means of the city’s hoodlums, scabs and grasses.
When a dead body is fished out of a canal Rath is not satisfied with the investigation and sets out on his own. He discovers links between the death and organised crime, and of course this puts him in danger. It’s not long before he is drawn into the dark underworld, meeting low life gangsters, corrupt caretakers and getting glimpses of beautiful Russian countesses hiding in the grim slums of the city.
Babylon Berlin is a brilliant example of the genre. Kutscher parades a whole theatre of characters in front of us, provides an engaging narrative and regularly surprises the reader. The denouement is horrific and quite just. I always find it hard reading thrillers like this, especially when characters that have made only a brief appearance turn out to be the key to the whole plot, and I was a bit concerned that after I enjoyed the TV series so much, the book would turn out to be an anti-climax.
In fact the book was helpful in clearing up some of the left over threads from the film. It’s easy for a writer to fill in the political background with a quick explanation, whilst the television adaptation never made it easy for the viewer to follow the plot amongst the chaos – that was part of the mystery, part of the attraction.
I would definitely recommend this book – the first in a series of five – though Kutscher creates a dark and complex world, and I’m not sure I can face the rest of it or a while.
Senior Reader 