In the last days of the First World War, socialist revolution swept across Germany, transforming Berlin into a battleground. But for Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner and his young assistant, Hans Fichte, the revolution is a mere inconvenience. They are trying to catch a killer who has left a trail of women dead in the slums of Berlin, all with identical markings etched into their backs. When Rosa Luxemburg, one of the leaders of the socialist uprising, is found murdered with the same carvings in her skin, things get even more complicated for Hoffner. The political police begin to interfere, hinting at an expected angle in the case, and Hoffner is met at every turn by men who will stop at nothing to keep him from finding out the truth about Rosa. Rosa’s death is a real historical mystery, one that has never been solved. In his remarkable new thriller, Jonathan Rabb presents one strikingly real solution, all the while painting a vivid, unforgettable picture of a dark city in chaos at a time of great political uncertainty.

Rosa: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Rabb, Jonathan

United States

Three Rivers Press

Berlin, 1927. When a studio executive at Ufa -- the home of German Cinema -- is found dead in his office bathtub, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar Nikolai Hoffner is determined to uncover the truth behind what he firmly believes is murder. With the help of Fritz Lang and Alby Pimm, the leader of the most powerful crime syndicate in Berlin, Hoffner finds his case taking him beyond the world of film and into the far more treacherous landscape of Berlin's sex and drug trade, the rise of Hitler's Brownshirts, and the even more astonishing attempts by onetime monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany. Jonathan Rabb's Shadow and Light is an electrifying thriller set in a darkly beautiful Berlin poised on the edge of destruction.

Shadow And Light (Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner)

Picador Paper

Berlin, between the two world wars. When an executive at the renowned Ufa film studios is found dead floating in his office bathtub, it falls to Nikolai Hoffner, a chief inspector in the Kriminalpolizei, to investigate. With the help of Fritz Lang (the German director) and Alby Pimm (leader of the most powerful crime syndicate in Berlin), Hoffner finds his case taking him beyond the world of film and into the far more treacherous landscape of Berlin’s sex and drug trade, the rise of Hitler’s Brownshirts (the SA), and the even more astonishing attempts by onetime monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany. Being swept up in the case are Hoffner’s new lover, an American talent agent for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and his two sons: Georg, who has dropped out of school to work at Ufa, and Sascha, his angry, older son, who, unknown to his father, has become fully entrenched in the new German Workers Party as the aide to its Berlin leader, Joseph Goebbels. What a spellbinding novel Shadow and Light is, and what a novelist Jonathan Rabb has become! When we last met Hoffner, it was 1919, and he had taken on the disappearance and death of Rosa Luxembourg in Rosa, a novel the critic John Leonard hailed as “a ghostly noir that could have been conspired at by Raymond Chandler and André Malraux.” Shadow and Light is equally brilliant and atmospheric, and even harder to put down or shake off. Like Joseph Kanon or Alan Furst, Rabb magically fuses a smart, energetic narrative with layers of fascinating, vividly documented history. The result is a stunning historical thriller, created by a writer to celebrate—and contend with.

Shadow and Light: A Novel

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

An Intriguing Historical Thriller Set in the Barcelona of the Spanish Civil War On the eve of Hitler’s Olympics, Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, a half Jew, has been forced out of the Kriminalpolizei. Luckily, Hoffner’s focus is elsewhere. His son Georg is missing in Spain, swept up in the sudden outbreak of the civil war. He has already lost Sascha, his elder son, who is fully entrenched in the Nazi regime. But Georg is not what he appears to be, and when Hoffner discovers this, he is determined to save the one son he can. The Second Son is the eagerly awaited final installment in Jonathan Rabb’s Berlin trilogy, set between the two world wars. In Harper’s Magazine, John Leonard called the first, Rosa, “a ghostly noir that could have been conspired at by Raymond Chandler and André Malraux.” The second, Shadow and Light (2009), garnered rave reviews—in The Washington Post, Wendy Smith praised its “atmosphere” and “brilliantly plotted narrative.” Now, nearly ten years after the events of Shadow and Light, Hoffner finds himself tossed into the chaos that is Spain— where he quickly meets anarchists, Soviet and British secret agents, and a female doctor called Mila Pera—as he follows a trail of clues left by Georg. In the spirit of Joseph Kanon and Alan Furst—whose Foreign Correspondent also took place in the mountains of Spain—Rabb delivers another atmospheric work, rich with his storytelling talent and historical expertise.

The Second Son: A Novel (Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner)

Sarah Crichton Books

4 cassettes / 4 hoursRead by David GarrisonAbridgment approved by the authorThe deadliest document ever written must be found.And time is running out.It has long been rumored in academic circles that a sixteenth-century monk named Eisenreich took Machiavelli several steps further, writing a masterplan for world domination so dangerous the Pope had him killed to suppress it. But Eisenreich's text, On Supremacy, survived. Some scholars even believed the Third Reich had a copy. But when the bullet-riddled body of a young girl is found in Montana and "Eisenreich" is her dying word, it becomes terrifyingly clear that not only is the document real--someone is planning to use this explosive piece of history in the late twentieth century.        This deadly document is at the heart of The Overseer, a chillingly authentic, compulsively readable thriller of global intrigue and political conspiracy that follows a desperate search for a fabled manuscript, one with frightening modern-day implications. Beautiful, troubled government agent Sarah Trent is given just enough information by her covert office to begin digging into the murder of the young girl. Her search takes her to Columbia University and a brilliant young political theorist named Xander Jaspers, who agrees to help her. But neither Xander nor Sarah fully understand the dangerous situation into which they've been thrown. For On Supremacy has fallen into the hands of a cabal intent on using it as a blueprint for ripping apart society as we know it and creating a new world order out of the ashes of the old.         The cabal, led by a coldly intelligent mastermind called the Overseer, begins its campaign of terror. As the acts of terrorism--assassinations, bombings, the collapse of the grain market--go off like clockwork, Sarah and Xander realize the only way to prevent total chaos is to find another copy of the manuscript and uncover the identity of the Overseer--and so the race is on.        This intelligent, full-throttle thriller is the extraordinary literary debut of a young political theorist, author Jonathan Rabb, who asks: Whatif such a sophisticated and dangerous sixteenth-century document resurfaced at the turn of the millennium? Would it be the most thrilling discovery of the twentieth century...or the most terrifying? Read On Supremacy at the end of this provocative novel and judge for yourself.

The Overseer

Random House Audio |

When a document, written by a long-dead Swiss monk, containing a master plan for world domination, falls into the hands of the ruthless Overseer cabal and they launch a campaign of world terror, a beautiful government agent joins forces with a brilliant young political theorist to stop them. Reprint.

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

Jove

The deadliest document ever written must be found. And time is running out. It has long been rumored in academic circles that a sixteenth-century monk named Eisenreich took Machiavelli several steps further, writing a masterplan for world domination so dangerous the Pope had him killed to suppress it. But Eisenreich's text, On Supremacy, survived. Some scholars even believed the Third Reich had a copy. But when the bullet-riddled body of a young girl is found in Montana and "Eisenreich" is her dying word, it becomes terrifyingly clear that not only is the document real--someone is planning to use this explosive piece of history in the late twentieth century. This deadly document is at the heart of The Overseer, a chillingly authentic, compulsively readable thriller of global intrigue and political conspiracy that follows a desperate search for a fabled manuscript, one with frightening modern-day implications. Beautiful, troubled government agent Sarah Trent is given just enough information by her covert office to begin digging into the murder of the young girl. Her search takes her to Columbia University and a brilliant young political theorist named Xander Jaspers, who agrees to help her. But neither Xander nor Sarah fully understand the dangerous situation into which they've been thrown. For On Supremacy has fallen into the hands of a cabal intent on using it as a blueprint for ripping apart society as we know it and creating a new world order out of the ashes of the old. The cabal, led by a coldly intelligent mastermind called the Overseer, begins its campaign of terror. As the acts of terrorism--assassinations, bombings, the collapse of the grain market--go off like clockwork, Sarah and Xander realize the only way to prevent total chaos is to find another copy of the manuscript and uncover the identity of the Overseer--and so the race is on. This intelligent, full-throttle thriller is the extraordinary literary debut of a young political theorist, author Jonathan Rabb, who asks: What if such a sophisticated and dangerous sixteenth-century document resurfaced at the turn of the millennium? Would it be the most thrilling discovery of the twentieth century...or the most terrifying? Read On Supremacy at the end of this provocative novel and judge for yourself.

Crown

In his national bestseller The Overseer, Jonathan Rabb demonstrated his imaginative power and keen understanding of history with a superb thriller that dazzled critics and fans alike. The Book of Q now brings his gifts to full, stunning fruition. Asia Minor, sixth century: After several centuries of conflict with the early Christian church, the Manichaeans, a heretical sect, vanish from the historical record. Bosnia, 1992: Ian Pearse, a young American relief worker destined for the priesthood, has his faith tested by the horrors of war, but is jolted from his despair by a passionate affair with a Croatian woman named Petra. Rome, present day: Father Pearse, now a researcher at the Vatican Library, comes into possession of an ancient scroll after the mysterious death of one Vatican priest and the disappearance of another. His scholar's curiosity aroused, he has the document translated by an old friend in Rome. He is stunned to learn that the scroll contains ingeniously coded letters and the text of the "Perfect Light," a Manichaean prayer that has never been found in its written form. In the early days of the Christian church the Manichaeans had been an overly zealous, highly organized secret society, scorned by the church and seemingly driven out of existence. But these newly discovered documents indicate an earth-shattering alternate history, a long-dormant, highly evolved conspiracy carefully nurtured for centuries, and an even more important scroll hinted at in the letters that will facilitate "the great awakening." When the pope dies of a sudden illness, Pearse is roughed up by Vatican security, who want the scroll, and when the woman who translated the prayer for him is kidnapped, he realizes that "the great awakening" is not an academic concept but something very real and dangerous. With his friend's life at stake, Pearse must find the document that holds the key to this Manichaean conspiracy. Racing from the Vatican to Greece and back to Bosnia, Pearse has to decipher the cryptograms and codes that have been passed down for centuries from one Manichaean sect to another in the documents he finds. He is also reunited with Petra, the passionate, determined Croatian woman who has lingered in his mind since their time together in Bosnia years earlier. Together they must face a heresy that has been vigilantly guarded and cared for throughout the centuries until the time is right to unleash it on the world. And the time is now. . . .

The Book of Q: A Novel

Mystery

On the eve of Hitler's Olympics, Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, a half-Jew, has been forced out of the Kriminalpolizei. Yet his career is the least of his worries. His son Georg is missing, swept up in the sudden outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Hoffner has already lost his elder son to the Nazis. But Georg is not what he appears to be, and Hoffner is determined to save the one son he can. Jonathan Rabb has delivered another darkly compelling and atmospheric work in The Second Son.

The Second Son: A Novel (Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, 3)

Picador

November 1918. A socialist revolution is sweeping across Germany, wreaking havoc on war-torn Berlin. Amid the ruin of the city's slums, four women are found dead―all with identical scars on their backs. Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner and his assistant, Hans Fichte, are baffled by the killings, and when another body is discovered, the case takes an ominous and unexpected turn. The fifth victim is none other than Rosa Luxemburg―a leader of the suppressed socialist uprising. Now, the Polpo, political police, are interested in the murders, and the mystery of Rosa's death leads Hoffner into the heart of Weimar's political turmoil, where ideas can be fatal.
A spellbinding historical thriller from the author of The Second Son and Shadow and Light, Rosa is "a ghostly noir that could have been conspired at by Raymond Chandler and André Malraux . . . astonishing" (John Leonard, Harper's Magazine).

Rosa: A Novel (Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, 1)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rabb, Jonathan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Rabb, Jonathan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rabb, Jonathan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Rosa: A Novel

Shadow And Light (Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner)

Shadow and Light: A Novel

The Second Son: A Novel (Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner)

The Overseer

The Overseer

The Overseer

The Book of Q: A Novel

The Second Son: A Novel (Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, 3)

Rosa: A Novel (Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner, 1)