Resurrection of the Dead (detective novel)

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Resurrection of the Dead is the first of eight "Brenner crime stories" by the author Wolf Haas from 1996. The book was awarded the 1997 German Crime Prize .

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In Zell am See , the bodies of a very wealthy American couple are found frozen to death in the chairlift. Criminal Police Officer Simon Brenner is a member of the team investigating the case without success. The only suspects are the gilder Antretter (the elevator operator and the murdered person's son-in-law, who, however, allegedly spent the night of the murder with his nephew Lorenz) and the “Pagan Church” (threatening letters are signed with this name, in which the population is asked to deny To stop ski tourism and threaten to blow up the large dams of the lake). After a falling out with his superior Nemec, Brenner quits and works as a private detective for the insurance of the two victims.

After hanging around Zell from January to September without gaining any knowledge, things got moving again in the atypically hot autumn: While ice stock sport, Brenner meets an old German who is missing both hands and the gas station attendant Andi. The German tells that her friend Lorenz Antretter will be released from the madhouse that day and invites Brenner to come with her when she picks him up. On the way there, the detective learns that the murdered Americans were particularly enthusiastic about the "demonstration": At a wedding on the church square, the Heimattheater plays small anecdotes from the past of the married couple. When they arrive at the hospital, they find out that Lorenz has already been picked up by his uncle, the gilder Antretter.

Two days later, Brenner meets Lorenz Antretter in the “Feinschmeck” restaurant. He tells him that both his father and mother disappeared after his birth and that he was then adopted by the brother of the gold maker. Furthermore, Brenner learns that Lorenz, together with the gas station attendant Andi, the Germans and a girl named Clare Corrigan, is planning a theater performance with the collapse of the dams as its content, and that it is not true that he visited his uncle on the night of the murder. Then the detective goes to church and there comes up with the idea to find out more about the schoolgirl Clare from the teacher Kati Engljahriger. She tells him that Clare's real name is Elfi Lohninger and gives him her exercise book. Brenner also learns that Elfi is an illegitimate child of the Gilders.

The next day the detective visits the gilder Antretter. He finds out that Lorenz is the author of the threatening letters from the “Pagan Church” and that the gilder made up the alibi not for himself but for his nephew. When Brenner asks further, the gilder asks him to leave. On going out, he discovers that Elfi Lohninger works as a housemaid for the gilder.

In his room at the “Hirschenwirt”, the private detective reads through the last essay in her exercise book. The text is about the company of the murdered American couple who helped build the reservoir. The company mainly deals with luminous numbers. From 1915 onwards, female painters fell ill and died, one of them being Clare Corrigan, with whom Elfi Lohninger identified very strongly. During the war, the company switched to building materials and, after the war, supplied the necessary concrete for the construction of the reservoir. Finally, the article mentions that hundreds of people died while the wall was being built.

After reading the essay, Brenner goes to the “Feinschmeck” cafe. Through the crack in the door he can see his former superior, Nemec. Instead of going to the café, he buys the “Pinzgauer Post” and sits on a bench by the lake. He reads in the newspaper that over a hundred thousand shillings were withdrawn from the accounts of the murdered Americans. During the night, the Shell petrol station starts to burn and explodes because the fire department is late. The gas station attendant Andi tells the newspaper that Lorenz doused his uncle, who was smoking in the car, with gasoline and that they were both burned. At the funeral of the two of them, Brenner learns from Nemec that the police are certain that Lorenz put the two Americans in the elevator.

When Brenner decides to leave, he gets a call from a taxi driver named Goggenberger. He tells him that the landlady of the "Seewirt" inn has a dead person lying in a room and that it is allegedly Lorenz. Brenner drives to the “Seewirt” with Goggenberger and finds out that the dead person is actually Lorenz. He sits down in Goggenberger's taxi again and asks him to drive to Andi's apartment. Brenner calls there with the car phone, realizes that Andi is not there and asks the taxi driver to go to the “Preußenstadl” inn, where the German lives. When Goggenberger demonstratively drives slowly at Brenner's request to drive faster, Brenner threatens him with his Glock, which he bought the day before, and forces him to drive fast.

In the apartment the detective finds the handless German, Elfi Lohninger and the gas station attendant Andi. First he confronts the gas station attendant. He admits that Lorenz did not die in the fire and specifically asked him to tell everyone that he deliberately "drove off" with his uncle. When the German then takes off her glasses to rub her eyes, Brenner notices her incredible resemblance to the gilder. She tells him that she is the gilder's sister and that she was impregnated by her brother and thus gave birth to Lorenz. After the birth, the child was taken away from her and raised by the second brother. Out of desperation she went to Germany and lay down in front of the train. At the last moment, however, she changed her mind and just lost her hands. She returned 50 years later and suggested that the Americans take the chairlift up on their wedding anniversary and watch a performance from the home theater from above. However, this performance never took place and the two froze to death at a height of 20 meters. She confesses that she incited her son to kill his father. They got the lift key and the checks that Lorenz forged with the help of Elfi Lohninger, who worked at the gilder. Shortly afterwards, two police officers enter the apartment that the taxi driver has called. After a brief explanation from the detective, they arrest the Gilder's sister.

Narrative style

As in all other Brenner crime novels, the book has Haas' characteristic narrative style. Sentences often get along without a verb, associations are cleverly provoked by slowly announcing pages beforehand and finally condensing them more and more.

literature

Wolf Haas: Resurrection of the Dead . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1996, 160 pages, ISBN 978-3-499-22831-5

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