"[Ice Cold] packs a far harder punch and lingers longer in the mind than many a longer, more convoluted work."—Laura Wilson, The Guardian
This novel is vivid, bleak and short . . . The novel certainly has power, and the story of the murderer (ignorant, violent and yet passive when confronted by authority) and his victims, as well as the other characters, is starkly memorable, not least because of the ability of the author to convey experiences from her characters' perspectives and with their emotions."—Maxine Clarke, Eurocrime"
From the propaganda of the Nazi politicians through the desperate lives of ordinary Munich citizens to the troubles of the sexually abused heroine, Schenkel marshals her material to fashion a novel that for all its brevity conveys an ambitious scale."—Barry Forshaw, The Daily Mail"
Schenkel, whose first novel, The Murder Farm, earned comparisons to In Cold Blood, draws readers in slowly with her extremely dispassionate style. As the oddities escalate . . . the book acquires a numbing power. Those who believe fiction needs sympathetic characters to involve the reader will meet their match in Schenkel. Schenkel's second novel, a No. 1 seller in Germany, takes leave from mainstream crime fiction with its merciless depiction of a rapist killer and his victims."—Kirkus Reviews"
Engaging . . . Schenkel marshals her material to fashion a novel that for all its brevity conveys an ambitious scale."—Express"
In the very ordinariness of Kathie's sorry fate after only a week in Munich, and in the plausibility of Kalteis's self-justifications, Schenkel illustrates one of the bleakest tragedies of modern times: that so many saw what was happening, yet no one really reacted-a metaphor for the Holocaust to come."—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
2015-03-20
A killer/rapist is on the loose in late-1930s Munich, which even without him is not a good time or place for an attractive young woman from a distant village to come looking for work.The woman, Kathie, is hoping to get a job as a maid for a wealthy family, but a friend encourages her to look for a man who can buy her nice things instead. Needing a place to stay—in these tough times, the most anyone can offer is a couch, and even that is frequently taken—she ends up sleeping in a room above a bar with a blond stranger. Thus begins her life of prostitution—a brief life, as it turns out. Through the narratives of other victims, court testimonies, and interrogations of the killer (all presented in different typefaces), the reader is transported to a grim, affectless place. Even bicycle rides down winding lanes and trips to the countryside are joyless activities. The rapist, a Nazi whose increasingly gruesome acts will be erased from public record by image-sensitive authorities, is frighteningly bland; except when he's cutting up dead bodies, it's as if he's already been erased himself. German author Schenkel, whose first novel, The Murder Farm, earned comparisons to In Cold Blood, draws readers in slowly with her extremely dispassionate style. As the oddities escalate—one scene has Kathie move robotically from one bed to another and back to service two men—the book acquires a numbing power. Those who believe fiction needs sympathetic characters to involve the reader will meet their match in Schenkel. Schenkel's second novel, a No. 1 seller in Germany, takes leave from mainstream crime fiction with its merciless depiction of a rapist killer and his victims.