A breath-taking story that really captures your mind and doesn’t let go.
How can you put down a book when its words invade your mind and take root in your brain? How can you leave it alone when you’re screaming out for more? How can you stop when your very soul is screaming “go”?
Gripping is the right word to describe the first of Rory Clements’ newest novel series. Gripping is the word I used to describe it because I simply could not let go of the book. I gripped it so hard that I began to damage the cover.
Released last year, Munich Wolf is set in 1935 Munich and follows Munich criminal detective Sebastian Wolff as he tries to solve a murder case. Not just any murder case, however. This one has serious political implications and threatens to destabilise Anglo-German relations. It is a case which the Führer himself has taken a keen interest in. It is also a case where, the deeper Wolff digs, the more dangerous it becomes. This is a tale of injustice and fear as an honest man tries to uphold the law in the new Nazi Germany.
This story is one with more twists than a rollercoaster and more turns than a roundabout. At every moment I’m clutching the book, my heart stopping and my mind racing. For every moment there is a new development that casts doubt onto any theories you may have made and shatters what you think you know. It is sad and angering at times and very thought provoking.
The best part for me, however, is it avoids clichés. There are some twists in the tale that truly shocked me and had me thinking: wow. Clements avoids the typical happy ending in ways that perhaps some readers would expect and instead sticks the knife in and twists it. It hammers home the themes of horror and injustice that Munich Wolf carries underneath the themes of the crime and thriller genres.
This is a book you can truly get lost in. The story takes hold of you, enchants your mind and pulls it into the world of Sebastian Wolff. Reading this, I was on holiday in Italy yet found myself a number of times emerging from the book and thinking for a split second that I was in Germany. Such was the power of the story.
Breath-taking and heart-stopping. Thought provoking and emotionally triggering. Gripping and extremely enjoyable. Rory Clements has done it again, created a masterpiece of fiction that is impossible to put down. You find yourself invested in the story and a part of it as though you yourself are written into the pages.
With a sequel, Evil in High Places, already just released, Munich Wolf is the start of an amazing journey that is not to be missed. If you are a fan of crime and thriller and historical fiction and the period surrounding World War Two, get reading this book!
Words by James Jobson
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