The Constant Man (A Willi Geismeier thriller, 2)
Set during the early years of Hitler’s chancellorship leading up to World War II, The Constant Man is a gripping tale of murder and mayhem. Our recalcitrant hero, detective Willi Geismeier, is no longer with the police department, having gone into hiding after fingering Otto Bruck, one of Hitler’s favourites, for multiple murders and rapes. Steiner uses a similar theme here, with Willi chasing a frenzied madman, who relishes murdering women by stabbing them dozens of times using alternate hands—except that this time, at great risk to himself, Willi is detecting whilst staying undetected, all the while chased by the police, Gestapo and SS. Willi’s unwavering devotion to justice makes him the constant man of the title. His information points to a very high-ranking Gestapo official, a favourite of Himmler’s.
Steiner uses many characters to pull his tightly-plotted story together, and it isn’t told with the twists and turns of a traditional thriller (interwoven in the story we follow the culprit through his psychological growth into what he becomes), but follows a fairly chronological list of chapters detailing people’s whereabouts, contacts and conversations, all of which fit into the jigsaw by the end. As it’s heavy on detail, readers need to pay careful attention to how the plot develops, but the book is hard to put down. Steiner paints an ugly picture of post-Weimar Germany and delves into the psyche of one character to explain the “effective mental somersault” which ordinary people indulged in to justify their own actions and those of the barbarous political machine, which tightened its grip daily. Recommended for its insight into the dark spirit of ´30s Germany, and the gradual infiltration of Nazism unleashed into ordinary lives and souls. This is a thought-provoking and chilling read.
