The dark side (Frank Schätzing)
The dark side is the third novel by Frank Schätzing , which was written in 1997 and originally published by Emons Verlag . After the great success of his novel Der Schwarm , Goldmann-Verlag has reissued a revised and updated version in 2007. The action takes place mainly in Cologne , but develops against the background of the second Gulf War in 1991 and the phenomenon of the recruitment of foreign legionnaires for the dirty aspects of the war. In 2008, the film adaptation of the novel was broadcast by the TV station RTL .
action
Eight years after the Gulf War - in 1999 - the Turkish-born Commissioner Menemenci in Cologne has to solve the brutal murder of a compatriot, the apparently harmless greengrocer Mehmet Üsker, who is popular with neighbors. He was apparently systematically and professionally tortured and finally tortured with three gunshots in the stomach. At the same time, private detective Vera Gemini receives the task of finding his old friend Andreas Marmann from the smart but also mysterious Simon Bathge. Although he initially leaves his motives in the dark, Gemini goes on a search and learns that after his time as a professional soldier in the German Armed Forces, Marmann got on the wrong track and was involved in a bank robbery. He then went into hiding with the Foreign Legion and joined an international mercenary force. Allegedly he died in the Gulf War. Soon she also makes the discovery that Marmann fought together with the torture murder victim Mehmet Üsker in the mercenary troops. Faced with these findings, Bathge convinced the detective of his doubts about Marmann's death and his fear that Üsker had killed us out of revenge for failure to provide assistance in Kuwait when his comrades left him lying in the desert with a shot in the stomach. Now he has to find Marmann before he can find him and kill him too. In the case of Marmann's sister, a minor character who is almost completely immersed in the virtual world of a computer role-playing game , Gemini finds evidence that the brother regularly transfers money to her and is therefore actually still alive. Through Ymir Solwegyn, another member of the network of former Foreign Legionnaires who now runs a run-down nightclub in Cologne, she succeeds in making contact with Marmann, who now lives in Paris under a new name. In the meantime, Commissioner Menemenci has also tracked the connection between Üskers and the former mercenary troops, but can no longer prevent Solwegyn's death and the destruction of the nightclub by an explosives attack. Üsker's killer got ahead of Vera and Bathge and lured Marmann from Paris to Cologne. In the final part of the novel, Vera Gemini has to recognize the bitter truth that Marmann is not the one left behind with blood and vengeance, but her client Simon Bathge, who has meanwhile become a lover, who used her to complete his revenge on the last of the former faithless comrades . In addition, she realizes that her client is actually not Simon Barthge, but Jens Lubold.
First edition
- Frank Schätzing: The dark side . Emons, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-89705-111-7