Winner of the German Crime Fiction Award In this second Black Forest Investigation, Chief Inspector Louise Boni returns from rehab at a Buddhist monastery after the events of the award-winning
Zen and the Art of Murder.
With a shaky grasp on her newfound sobriety, Boni resumes work with the criminal investigation department. Her first assignment, the probe of a fireman's death while battling the explosion of a secret underground weapons cache, reveals connections to both neo-Nazis and illegal arms dealers from the former Yugoslavia. But the sudden incursion of secret service agents into the scene indicates more far-reaching possibilities. Boni must come to grips with the dark forces behind the hidden munitions, the divided loyalties of a new partner, and the ghosts of her own past while trying to resolve the most challenging case of her career. "Its plot bristles with invention." — Barry Forshaw,
Guardian
"Oliver Bottini is a terrific storyteller and he evokes his setting — the Rhine borderlands of the Black Forest — with skill." — Jake Kerridge,
Sunday Express
"
A Summer of Murder
has a plot as surprising as the earlier novel . . . taut writing and pacy events." — Joan Smith,
Sunday Times
"An atmospheric, original story that will keep you hooked to the final heart-rending revelations." —
Crime Review
"Oliver Bottini, one of the few German authors who play in crime-writing's premier league, really knows how to tell a good story." —
Frankfurter Rundschau
"Tension without brutality, local colour without small-minded sentimentality, good, intelligent reading with depth." —
Handelsblatt
"It's been a long time since any crime author started out so strongly, so visually." —
Die Zeit