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    Stasi Child: A Karin Müller Thriller
    Stasi Child: A Karin Müller Thriller
    Stasi Child: A Karin Müller Thriller
    Ebook407 pages6 hours

    Stasi Child: A Karin Müller Thriller

    By David Young

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    David Young's chillingly intricate Stasi Child was A London Times “Crime Book of the Month” and a Telegraph Pick of the Week.

    1975: When Oberleutnant Karin Muller is called to investigate a teenage girl's body at the foot of the Berlin Wall, she imagines she's seen it all before. But she soon realizes that this is a death like no other before it - the girl was evidently trying to escape from West Berlin.

    As a member of the People's Police, Muller's power in East Germany only stretches so far. The Ministry for State Security, the Stasi, assures her the case is closed, all they need to know is the girl's name. Yet they strongly discourage her from asking questions. The evidence doesn't add up, and it soon becomes clear the crime scene has been staged. But this regime does not tolerate curious minds, and it takes Müller too long to realize that the trail she's been following may lead her dangerously close to home ...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateAug 1, 2017
    ISBN9781250121769
    Stasi Child: A Karin Müller Thriller
    Author

    David Young

    David Young serves as the senior minister for the North Boulevard Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee—a church devoted to church planting and disciple-making. He has worked for churches in Missouri, Kansas, and Tennessee, has taught New Testament at several colleges, formerly hosted the New Day Television Program, and travels widely teaching and preaching. He holds several advanced degrees in New Testament, including a PhD in New Testament from Vanderbilt University.

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    Reviews for Stasi Child

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      This was a good murder mystery/thriller based in the mid 1970's in Berlin, Germany before The Wall came down.

      This is the first in a series and a debut novel by David Young. I will look forward to and continue reading the Karin Muller series.

      Thanks to netgalley and St Martin's Press for this advanced readers copy.
    • 2/5
      Nicely written but story less than credible. A good holiday read - easy going don't need to think too much.
    • 4/5
      This mystery is set in 1974 East Berlin and follows Oberleutnant Karin Mueller as she investigates the death of a young girl, apparently fleeing from West Berlin into East Berlin. She's concerned when she finds the Minister for State Security (Stasi) instead of the border police at the scene of the crime. They are obviously in control and warn Karin not to exceed the terms of her inquiry. In other words, don't challenge the official version of the story.

      The story follows three different voices. First is Karin and her frustration at not being able to fully investigate the crime. The second is Karin's husband, Gottfried, who is engaged in behavior that is quite risky for Karen. The third and most compelling is told to the voice of the Irma, one of the teens incarcerated in a workhouse. This subplot spans nine months and adds a grim layer to the narrative.

      This is the first book in an anticipated trilogy. Karin Mueller is an imperfect character which makes her even more interesting. The setting of communist controlled East Berlin is chillingly authentic. The story is filled with fear, intrigue and a secretive power struggle. This was a fantastic read for me. Stasi Child is a promising start to a gripping new noir crime series. I hope I don't have to wait too long to read the next one.
    • 5/5
      East Berlin, 1975, a murdered child, a staged crime scene.You know how sometimes you're not completely sure about something, but you take a punt and you LOVE IT? That's my relationship with this book.-- What's it about? --When Oberleutnant Karin Muller is summoned to investigate a young girl's body, found at the foot of the Berlin Wall, she's shocked that the available evidence suggests the girl was trying to escape from the West to the East. It quickly becomes clear that the 'evidence' is staged, and that Muller's power as a member of the People's Police is restricted by the omnipresent grip of the Stasi - the Ministry for State Security. Muller is instructed to ascertain the identity of the victim while making no attempt to identify or apprehend the culprit/s. Can she bear to limit her role in this way? What will happen to her if she doesn't?Meanwhile, Karin's marriage is disintegrating and her relationship with her Underleutnant, Wener Tilsner, is shifting, but this is the least of husband Gottfried's concerns: in the DDR, a Kriminalpolizei is not permitted to fraternise with enemies of the state, let alone remain married to one...-- What's it like? --Gripping. The personal and criminal elements are both immediately engaging and well paced. The threads ultimately coalesce to form an astonishingly powerful depiction of life in a totalitarian state and the ending is stunning.Karin is a vulnerable yet difficult character from the opening paragraphs. It quickly becomes apparent that she supports the Communist regime and she could show far more concern for her husband. Her naivety is disturbing at times and a reader may be several steps ahead of her at any given point, especially since we are privvy to Irma Behrendt's first-person narration revealing the cruel and abusive treatment of young people in a state run youth workhouse.Irma's fury at the brutality and duplicity of the world she encounters is a shocking counterpoint to Karin's more subdued acceptance of their world. Irma's resistance is genuine and fierce; Karin's is sporadic and easily manipulated by the men around her, but it's Irma's end that will truly horrify readers.-- Final thoughts --This is a book I know I'll be thinking about for weeks to come as I continue to absorb the aftershocks of the horrors depicted. It's clearly intended to be the first in a series featuring Karin Muller, and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for the next book, though what more Young can do to poor Karin I'm not sure!It's also made me want to learn more about this period in history, which, obsessed as the English education system seems to be with WW2 and Nazi Germany, didn't really focus much on the DDR (as far as I remember).Page-turning, immersive, absorbing and shocking. Highly recommended.Thanks to Midas for providing me with a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
    • 5/5
      Crime novels set in totalitarian countries have the added twist of the political dimension influencing the crime detection and this one doesn't disappoint. The body of a young girl is discovered by the Berlin Wall in mid 1970s East Berlin, apparently having been shot from the West while fleeing into the East. However, all is not as it seems and Criminal Investigator Karin Muller, the first female to occupy the role in the history of the GDR, is caught in the deadly crossfire of warring factions within the infamous Stasi, the Ministry of State Security. This is full of drama and plot twists, and some grim examples of the treatment by the Stasi and East German state of its citizens, including children. Some of the usual crime novel cliches creep in - Muller's marriage is on the rocks, she has a fling with her deputy Werner Tilsner, and, inevitably, they are both taken off the case at one point. This is a page-turner of a first novel and I will read subsequent ones in the series when they come out - the ending was ambiguous in several respects.
    • 4/5
      I’m probably wrong about this, but I think the trend of writing police procedurals set in totalitarian societies started with Martin Cruz Smith, whose Gorky Park was published back in 1981. Since then there have been many others, notably Philip Kerr’s ‘Bernie Gunther’ series, set mostly in Nazi Germany — and now with 14 books and still going strong. David Young’s series featuring Oberleutnant Karin Müller is set in East Berlin during the Cold War. This, the first of six novels in the series, takes place in 1975 and starts with the appearance of a dead body next to the Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier (what we would call the Berlin Wall). The body belongs to a young woman who appears, at first glance, to have been shot by West German border guards as he tried to cross into the East. But of course nothing is as it seems. It’s a long and complex story, genuinely disturbing at points, but I can’t decide yet if I want to continue with the series. Young works very hard to convince us of the reality of life in the German Democratic Republic, including an attempt to get into the head of a loyal police officer who understand that while the Stalinist regime is not perfect, it’s a more just and fair society than what she believes exists in the west. I finished the book unsure about how convincing it all was and whether I care enough about Oberleutnant Müller to spend more time in her company.
    • 4/5
      In a sense every person in this novel is a candidate to be the “Stasi Child” of this book’s title, so pervasive is the influence, the spying, and the danger posed by the Stasi, the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic. This is Cold War fiction at its most chilling.Not even Karin Müller, the book’s main protagonist, a detective in the murder squad of East Berlin’s Kripo, is exempt. (The Kripo is the nickname for the Kriminalpolizei.) In fact, she is very much in the Stasi’s sights for several reasons. Closest to home, her math teacher husband has been fraternizing with “fascist elements,” risking a spell in jail, or worse. Already he was sent for a time to teach at a remote youth detention center as a warning. One he hasn’t heeded. Mysteriously, detective Müller has been called on to investigate the death of a teenage girl whose body was found in a cemetery at the foot of the Berlin Wall. Dead bodies near the wall were not uncommon in winter 1975, when the story is set, as would-be escapees were shot on sight, but it appears this girl was shot in the back while attempting to escape into East Germany, not out of it. The case is a minefield of political elements, as well. Müller is told that Stasi agent Klaus Jäger will actually be in charge of the investigation, though Müller and her Unterleutnant Werner Tilsner will do the work. Moreover, their remit is confined to discovering the girl’s identity, not seeking to find out who murdered her. Whether the Stasi knows they are violating the terms of their assignment, whether they know she and Tilsner have been indiscreet, whether her husband is in jeopardy—everything could become a threat. Author David Young is an expert at ramping up these tensions, with one or two too many twists and turns nearing the end.Interwoven with the chapters about the investigation are first-person chapters, set seven months earlier, told from the point of view of Irma Behrendt, a fifteen-year-old inmate at the youth work camp where Müller’s husband was sent. She dreams of escape and wants to take her best friend with her. It would be dangerous, of course, but desperation breeds courage. Eventually, the two narratives converge. Irma’s tale has been, all along, vital backstory.With a female protagonist and first-person narrator, Julia Barrie was chosen to narrate the audiobook. Perhaps to give the many male characters distinctive audio personalities in her lower registers, she pitched Karin’s and Irma’s voices rather high. That sort of works for Irma—she’s young, after all—but not for Karin. She sounds too light, too immature, not forceful enough to be heading a murder squad. A benefit of audio is that Barrie handled all those multisyllabic German words with admirable ease.
    • 5/5
      4.8 stars – nearly perfect.

      I originally saw this listed on Netgalley, and my request was subsequently denied. So I waited (im)patiently for its release, and finally got to it. This brilliant debut novel was well worth the wait!

      This suspenseful thriller is set in 1970s East Germany. The Berlin Wall, known as the “Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier” in the East, is standing, and there’s a distinct sense of claustrophobia and near-paranoia for everyone, for everyone is a potential enemy of the state. It’s this atmosphere in which Oberleutnant Karin Müller is charged with investigating the death of a teenage girl found mutilated in a cemetery near the base of the Berlin Wall. Müller, along with her deputy Werner Tilsner, and with a senior officer of the Stasi, investigate, and almost immediately become ensnared between corrupt two wings of the Stasi, become a mission of life and death for Müller, and those around her.

      David Young’s writing is vivid and convincing, and the plot is intelligent, intriguing, and intricate. The character development is outstanding. Müller, sent to West Berlin by her Stasi superior, judges the western capitalism as “glorification of business and the business of making money, on the backs of the people”, is emotionally complex in her conformity with Communism and its values, and is very compassionate and principled in her actions to see this investigation through to the inevitable end.

      The author captures the time period very well in this fast-paced thriller, and the final third of the book is a series of hairpin twists and turns, like the mountain roads of the Harz range where the finale takes place. I’m looking forward to more from this author and this series.
    • 2/5
      As the guardian knight from the closing scenes of ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ might have said, ‘I chose poorly’ with this book. I had found myself in Sheffield with neither a book not sufficient charge on my Kindle to sustain me on the journey home, and this was the only vaguely appealing book I could see in the station newsagent.It didn’t even hold my attention as far as Chesterfield: weak plot and utterly implausible characters. The basic story revolves around the investigation into the death of a young girl whose body was found near the Berlin Wall, on the East German side, with a clear implication that she had been escaping from rather than into the West. The investigation is hampered by conflicts between the Stasi and the Vopos, different arms of law enforcement. There was, however, no cliché knowingly overlooked, and my journey down to London seemed to take an inordinately long time without anything worthwhile to read
    • 3/5
      I had high hopes for Stasi Child but I was ultimately disappointed. I didn´t find that Young really managed to convey the atmosphere of East Germany to the degree that a writer like Philip Kerr, was able to do. It felt riddled with clichés and the so-called twists were frequenbtly telegraphed. Oh well.

    Book preview

    Stasi Child - David Young

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