To The Last Page

In a manner that is becoming familiar with the series involving half-Spanish half-German Frankfurt police Commissioner Cornelia Weber, En caída libre (In Free Fall) opens with two apparently unrelated cases, a Spanish connection and new complications in the Commissioner's personal life. The prologue presents the situation of an airline cleaning lady Fatima Celik, dying after a fall down the stairway of a plane that has just arrived from Santiago, Chile. Although accidental there is a suspicion that drugs were hastily removed from her pocket by a colleague just after the fall. Cornelia's involvement with this case arises out of another death. As with the first book in the series, Entre dos aguas , it arises out of the Main river in the form of the dead dismembered body of a young woman, Nicole Eulenberg, weighted down with stones and washed up on the shore at Niederrad. There is a Spanish or Spanish language connection in both cases, suspicion being thrown on a flight from Chil...

In a way that now seems typical of Rosa Ribas's Commissioner Cornelia Weber series, even after just reading the first book Entre dos aguas , the second book in the series Con anuncio  (which translates something like 'As Announced') opens with what you might call a low-key explosive situation. A package has been delivered to a publicity agency in Frankfurt that explodes on opening. The device only showers confetti over the terrified receptionist, but there is a message inside that warns that the next one will be real. The Baumgard & Holder agency is in competition for a contract to run a major campaign for the city of Frankfurt, one that promotes cultural, ideological and religious tolerance in a multicultural society. The city suffers a reputation of being one of the most dangerous in Germany and that image won't be improved by the threats made against an agency hoping to promote a campaign of tolerance. It's not the only threat that has been made. Several anon...

Not all cases are as easily resolved as Mrs Merckele, who has been charged with the killing of her husband, even though both are elderly and not the kind of people you expect to be the subject of a murder investigation. After his death, a secret room was found in the office of Jörg Merckele who worked in the banking sector, an Aladdin's cave, filled with numerous purchases, from jewellery and CDs to gym equipment. His wife has murdered him, suspecting an affair because of the spending on his bank accounts, but she is unrepentant even when she finds out that he has been hoarding so much over the years. That case is quickly wrapped up and the paperwork done rather in a rush, because there is another more troubling case for Commissioner Cornelia Weber and her homicide team. The weather has been bad in Frankfurt, causing flooding and bringing the city traffic to a standstill, and the Main river has thrown up a dead body, wrapped around one of the pillars of the Alte Brücke bridge. The ...