Eight night

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AchtNacht is a thriller by the German writer Sebastian Fitzek, inspired by The Purge, and released in March 2017 . The book published by Droemer Knaur is the author's sixteenth work.

action

The musician Benjamin Rühmann, who lives in Berlin, was involved in a car accident with his daughter Jule four years earlier. When the manager of his band at the time began to molest his daughter sexually in the car, Ben lost control of the car and had an accident that resulted in Jule having both legs amputated. While Ben's marriage to his wife Jennifer fell apart, Jule moved into her own apartment.

Four years later, Ben receives a message from Jule, with whom he is in close contact, that he may be in danger. When he seeks out Jule, he finds her in the courtyard of the residential complex, apparently having attempted suicide. Because Jule is now in an artificial coma and he blames himself for it, he begins to drink, which ultimately leads to his being kicked out of his current band.

On the evening of August 8th, Jennifer asked Ben to come to Jules' apartment. There she reveals to him that she has doubts about Jules' suicide attempt, as there is evidence that Jule was not alone before the alleged crime. Shocked by this news, Ben goes to the HiFlyer to think about it and sees his face on the big television screen of a hotel. When he goes there, his face has disappeared, but he learns from a hotel guest that the whole thing has something to do with the “eight night”. On the way back to his apartment, Ben finds out about the "Eight Night" in the subway: a "hunting lottery" on the Internet where you can suggest the name of a hated person for ten euros. On August 8th at 8:08 pm a name was finally drawn, whereupon the "eight nights" is outlawed for twelve hours and on which anyone who has bought a "hunting license" for one euro can commit all crimes, including murder . The successful hunter will then receive a premium of ten million euros and, as the website claims, will then be pardoned by the Federal President. As “eight nights”, however, to Ben's surprise, not he, but Arezu Herzsprung, a psychology student, is listed.

She is currently taking a taxi to the Rudolf Virchow Hospital while the radio hosts argue about whether the “Eight Night” is actually legal and whether there is really a hunting bonus. They also explain that the operators of the site wanted to be on the safe side if an “eight-night” person was hiding too well and had therefore chosen two people. After Arezu got off at the clinic, but was recognized by the taxi driver, he passed on his information to his colleague Dash.

After Ben escaped from a ticket control, he clashes with a group of thugs, led by Nikolai Vanderbildt, who chase him, but finally let go of him after they get his wallet. Through this Nikolai gets the information that Ben's daughter is in the Rudolf Virchow Hospital. When Ben is at home, he is contacted by Jenny, who informs him that all of his data, including his address, have been published on the Internet and that proper hunting groups have formed. As a last resort, Ben calls his father, who is a former police officer and with whom he has not had any contact for a long time, so that he can organize an officer for him. A short time later he receives a call from the hospital, after which Jule's condition has deteriorated rapidly, which is why Ben sprints to the nearby clinic. There he has to find out that everything is fine with Jule, but finds a car key in her hand. When Dash, who actually runs a website where he uploads videos of accidents, rape and fights, shows up dressed as a police officer and apparently wants to threaten Ben, he escapes. As a last resort, he takes the car from which he found the car key in Jules' hand, and thus escapes Dash. He then meets his former video supplier Nikolai, with whom he decides to use the “Eight Night” in their favor.

While Ben drives his car onto the city highway, he is startled by a person in the back seat. Arezu, who threatens him with a weapon, also made the wrong call from the hospital beforehand and left the car keys. Now she forces Ben to drive to a place with a computer so that he can end the “eight night”. Because as Arezu explains to him, she thinks he is Oz, who together with her brought the “Eight Night” to life. What was supposed to be a psychological experiment to find out how many people would participate if they believed they could actually propose a person got out of hand. Oz, whose real identity Arezu does not know, did not stick to the agreements and actually drew a name on August 8 instead of closing the page beforehand. Arezu had asked him to choose at least the two of them, but now had to find out that Ben is not Oz.

In Jules' apartment, to which they drove, the two are now waiting for the arrival of Martin Schwartz, the policeman that Ben's father organized. When he arrives, he asks Arezu and Ben to give him their cell phones, which they do. Ben, who still has Jule's cell phone with him, is contacted by Nikolai and Dash a little later. Nikolai explains to him that they injected Jule with a poison, and only if Ben followed their instructions would they tell him about the antidote at the end of “Eight Night”. Following instructions, he asks Schwartz to leave and is able to convince Arezu to come with him by claiming that Nikolai was Oz. Then the two of them drive in a taxi provided by Dash to a brothel, in which Ben is supposed to take part in a perverse game with a forced prostitute while he is being filmed by a surveillance camera. Arezu waiting in the car is recognized by a hunting group, whereupon the mob begins to smash the car, but flees when Arezu shoots one of the attackers with a pistol from the glove compartment of the taxi. In the meantime, Ben has decided not to follow the blackmailer's instructions anymore. During his escape, he frees the prostitute, and the pimp is killed. When he finds the smashed car without Arezu, he flees from the arriving mob to the Twelve Apostles Church , where he meets Arezu again.

Since the pastor has called a doctor to take care of the prostitutes, Ben and Arezu decide to leave. Ben gets a new task from Nikolai and Dash, who is angry about the destruction of his taxi. For this reason, Ben and Arezu drive to the main station , where they are expected by Dash and a hunting group. When she begins to hit Arezu and Ben, the latter can remember in a near-death experience how he proposed himself for "Eight Night" when he was drunk on the four year anniversary of Jules' accident. At the last second, Ben and Arezu are rescued by the station police, who were alerted by Martin Schwartz. When he said goodbye to Schwartz in Jules' apartment, Ben had given him information, whereby Schwartz found out about the extortion and thereupon Ben remained on the trail.

When Ben woke up in the hospital later that night, Jennifer informed him that Arezu was very badly injured. Shortly after, Ben receives a message from Oz instructing him to come to the roof of Jules dorm to end the whole thing. Dash and Nikolai also receive this message and go to the specified location. There Oz sets a trap for the two of them by posting a message stating that the hunting bonus of ten million euros is in their car. When several hunters attack the car, Dash is killed while Nikolai is injured. He then goes to the roof of the student residence, where Ben and Oz are already. As it turns out, Oz is a multiple personality of Arezu, who arose after a traumatic childhood experience. Arezu, who had known Jule for a long time, asked her for help to find out who Oz is. When Jule discovered this, he faked Jules' suicide and later selected Ben as "eight nights" because he had doubts about the alleged suicide attempt. When Nikolai now appears on the roof, Ben can find out from one of his tattoos which poison Jule was injected and informs the hospital before he plunges himself and Nikolai into the depths to finally take responsibility. Oz still manages to send an email with the information about receiving the hunting bonus to the successful hunter, Ben, before he is overwhelmed by Martin Schwartz, who was informed by Jennifer.

A month later, Jule woke up from her coma and, together with her mother, was informed about her father's large estate. It turns out that Ben is still alive as his fall was caught by Nikolai's body, but he is in a wheelchair. Schwartz helped him take on a new identity, and now Ben wants to live with Jennifer and Jule again. Arezu, however, is in a psychiatric hospital and is still looking for Oz.

characters

  • Benjamin “Ben” Rühmann : “Eight Nights”, on whose head 10 million euros are exposed in the “Eight Nights”.
  • Arezu Herzsprung / Oz : "Eight nights", on whose head 10 million euros are also exposed. Together with her multiple personality "Oz", she is the initiator of "Eight Night".
  • Jule Winter : daughter of Ben and Jennifer, who lost her legs in an accident four years ago. Now that she has attempted suicide, which was staged by Oz, she is in an artificial coma.
  • Dash : Operator of a website on which videos of accidents, rape and fights are uploaded.
  • Nikolai Vanderbildt : Thug and former business partner of Dash, with whom he teams up to hunt the "eight nights". He also blackmailed Ben, using Jule, whom he injected poison, as leverage.
  • Martin Schwartz : former head of operations at the SEK and undercover investigator who is hired to protect Ben and Arezu and who later overpowers Oz.
  • Jennifer "Jenny" Winter : Benjamin's former wife who now wants to divorce him.

reception

The book made it to number 1 on the Spiegel Online bestseller list at the end of March 2017 and is the best-selling novel of 2017.

Ute Esken from Audible magazine found that in AchtNacht the cliff hangers, high tension arcs and psychological trap doors that are typical for Fitzek were present again. He laid wrong tracks, kept throwing up new puzzles and thus confused the reader enormously, whereby he sometimes exaggerated too much. In addition to smaller holes in the hole, the only real weak point, according to Esken, is the unimaginative and predictable end.

The Buecherserien.de website states that the story seems to have been constructed in some places, but is still exciting because it is told at a high speed with many changes of perspective. The protagonists, on the other hand, are too complicated, which is why they remain largely flat and also remind of other characters from previous Fitzek novels. However, the social and societal criticism incorporated into the plot is highlighted positively. In conclusion, Eight Night is not Fitzek's strongest novel, but not bad either.

Michael Bauer from Hitchecker.de thinks that the individual chapters are pleasantly short and that they move from one exciting moment to the next. However, he also notes that the protagonists are far too one-dimensional and would rather resemble characters from soap operas. Fitzek only used the exciting topic as a basis for a well-known "on the run" story, in which the unbelievable ending in particular is disappointing, as Fitzek makes it much too easy for himself.

Text output

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ When the mob can't be stopped. March 24, 2017. Retrieved August 22, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Eight Night on buchreport.de, accessed on August 22, 2018.
  3. ↑ Bestseller: This is the most successful novel of the year. December 20, 2017, accessed January 11, 2019 .
  4. ↑ The hunt is on: Eight Night by Sebastian Fitzek. March 21, 2017, accessed August 30, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Review of the novel “AchtNacht” by Sebastian Fitzek. Retrieved August 30, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Eight Night: Hair-raising thriller by Sebastian Fitzek. March 14, 2017, accessed August 30, 2018 .