The Beginning (Berlin Gothic) by Jonas Winner

First published in Germany in 2011; published in translation by AmazonCrossing on August 27, 2013

Berlin Gothic was released as a seven-part serial in Germany. In translation, it has been divided into two parts, of which The Beginning is the first.

For reasons that are initially murky, young Till Anschütz runs away from a mysterious place called Brackenfelde. A car driven by Julia Bentheim strikes him, but Till resists being taken to a hospital for fear that he'll be returned to Brackenfelde. Julia takes him home, where Till meets her son Max and daughters Lisa and Claire. Max lives in fear of his inability to meet the expectations of Xavier, his domineering father, a writer whose books are so horrifying he can't talk about them with his children. In some unspecified way, Xavier is in the clutches of his wealthy new publisher, Felix von Quitzow.

A dozen years later, a dying woman is found in a pit at a construction site, the victim of an apparent crime. Konstantin Butz investigates. While Butz is exploring a shaft in the pit, he thinks he sees ... something ... before the walls collapse, burying him beneath the muddy earth.

The two timelines are linked by Claire, who has become Butz' girlfriend. Yet Claire is a conflicted woman, inexplicably drawn to a boxer named Frederik, who seems obsessed with her.

Where will the story go? I haven't a clue, which makes The Beginning interesting but difficult to review. Maybe it will go nowhere. Maybe it will be great. What I can say about The Beginning is that it's a good beginning. Jonas Winner generates genuine tension, a sense of foreboding that pervades both plot threads. He creates a strong atmosphere of creepiness and he writes fast-moving, minimalist prose. If nothing else, The Beginning makes me look forward to the ending.

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