The grisly murders of eight women in Berlin in 1943 set off a hush-hush investigation that calls for the expertise of a renowned Danish psychiatrist in Karen Robards's exceptional novel, Some Murders in Berlin. After the eighth victim is found, senior Nazi officials request that Elin Lund, aka Dr. Murder, assist the investigation so they can identify the killer quickly and quietly and avoid adverse publicity. Elin, a widow and mother of a half-Jewish son, reluctantly travels to Berlin with her two investigative assistants, who are also members of the Danish resistance. Meeting them in the bombed-out ruins of the city to examine the latest victim is Kurt Schneider, the chief of criminal investigations who has recently returned from the German front lines. Elin and Kurt immediately butt heads over the investigation, but as danger mounts and the killer recognizes that the renowned Dr. Murder is on the case, the two must overcome their doubts and secrets to stop the perpetrator before he kills again--and comes for Elin.
Their search for clues takes them from the stygian darkness of Berlin's streets to subterranean nightclubs where anything goes. Robards uses this creepy backdrop to full effect as Elin and Kurt develop a clearer profile of a killer who possesses an "aura of evil" while wrestling with their developing attraction for each other. Despite its deceptively bland title, Some Murders in Berlin is anything but. Readers are in for a white-knuckle ride and a heart-stopping finish. --Peggy Kurkowski, book reviewer and copywriter in Denver