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ClareR (5991 KP) rated Friedrichstrasse 19 in Books

Jun 11, 2023  
Friedrichstrasse 19
Friedrichstrasse 19
Emma Harding | 2022 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Friedrichstrasse 19 is 6 stories set in the same building over its lifetime. We see Berlin through the eyes of those that lived in the building between 1906 and 2019, and there are some serious historical moments as well as cultural highlights: a woman in the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion) in 1986; a photographers apprentice in 1906; an unhappily married Jewish woman who meets an actress pre-WW2; the Berlin Airlift post WW2 era, when the actress is trying to find her Jewish lover (she knows there’s little chance); 1969 and a photographer finds a young GDR escapee and decides to help her; 2019, a divorcee originally from the East, who met her ex-husband on the night that the Wall fell.

All intriguing characters and stories that give a glimpse into urban life in Berlin, as well as its history. It probably helped that I was familiar with the history of Germany generally (thanks to a German degree many years ago!), and I make a point of reading fiction set in Germany when/ if I come across it. And this is a pleasure when I come across books like Friedrichstrasse 19!
  
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David McK (3623 KP) rated A Death in Berlin (CI Schenke #3) in Books

Sep 7, 2025  
A Death in Berlin (CI Schenke #3)
A Death in Berlin (CI Schenke #3)
Simon Scarrow | 2025
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Third entry in Simon Scarrow's Criminal Inspector Schenke series, all of which have an unusual setting of being in wartime (WW2) Berlin, with their protagonist a Criminal Investigator member of the German police force (*not* SS).

In this one, it's largely about gang warfare, with CI Schenke and his team (some of whom he has to be very careful around) pulled into the investigation of a murder in Berlin (hence the tile) as Hitler prepares to invade Poland, and finding this murder may be connected to another case they are investigating around forged food coupons.

As before, it's shocking that some of the stuff you read about here - specifically, the with-holding of those (non forged) coupons from the Jewish community - actually happened!