Berlin 1949: The Second World War is over and the re-building has begun. The two sections of Berlin are no longer friendly allies and difficulties arise when they have to cooperate on a murder investigation with connects the two. Someone has killed a man and expertly dismembered his body with parts being found all over the ruins of the city. Horst Bosetzky has created a strange Noir mystery moving around between suspects and omnieciently picking up bits and pieces of their thoughts. Who is the killer? Who is the next victim? While detectives from East and West Berlin try to work together, they fall in love further complicating the issue. Bosetzky's brutal violence is cold and fatalistic. The characters are surviving without much of a moral code due to their last ten years' history of Nazism and defeat.I found the novel extremely well written and extremely disturbing. ( )