It's Munich, in the late thirties, the first years of fascism--the last before the war--is a dangerous place. Kathie is desperate to leave her sheltered village life and sets out for the city, determined that she'll get by, one way or another. She is dark-haired, buxom and pretty, like the women who recently disappeared without a trace.Young women are being found around Munich, abused and murdered. Josef Kalteis has been arrested, but is he really responsible for all those misdeeds? Did they execute the wrong one while the murderer is still on the loose?Spellbound by the magnetizing story of the dead women, the reader follows young Kathie. Somewhere in between her naive search for luck and existential concerns, occasional prostitution and the desire for true love, she is in grave danger.
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This book was a hard one to get into. That being said, the topic is quite eye-catching. It's not something you read or hear about every day in the novel industry. There were little bits of the suspect's trial to start out with. This gives it a different kind of perspective. Almost leaves the reader wondering if they have the right person or not. There was so little given about the victims, so identifying or empathizing was nearly impossible. After being introduced to and learning about Kathie, I felt I knew her very well until things took a turn for the worst. There are two sides to every person. One side shimmers about in the daytime and reveals everything you want to know about a person. The other side merely hides in the dark of the night as if it were a chapter no one should read. I could not help but feel I had met another person when learning about Kathie's dark side, which led to prostitution just to survive. The thought of anyone having to beg and belittle themselves just to make it in this world is unbearable. The title of this book describes perfectly the feeling I got when I discovered the details of the mad serial killer and exactly what he had done. For me, sadly, this book seems to miss its full potential. For it to only have kept my attention, the last part of the story was such a shame. The book was not terrible, but once I was done reading, I did not feel anything except the accomplishment of finishing another book.
