Tangled Web UK Review February 2008
Fatal Lies by
Frank Tallis
hbk out January 08
Published by Century
at £12.99
This is the third of the 'Liebermann' series, in which a young Viennese psychologist plays the detective, acting as a foil to his friend Inspector Rheinhardt of the Vienna Security Office. The time is 1903, at the height of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, when Vienna was one of the largest cities in Europe and certainly one of the most cultured and gayest, in the proper sense of the word.
In this episode, the two sleuths are called to the St Florian Military Academy out in the countryside, where a student has been found dead in the school laboratory. No cause of death is obvious, even after autopsy, but the whole set-up of the place is suspicious in that extreme bullying is endemic and apparently encouraged by some of the staff. The internal life of the school proves to be a moral and sexual minefield, several of the teachers proving to be sadistic psychopaths.
Rheinhardt is warned off by his superior officer, who it transpires has a nephew at the academy, but Max Liebermann's psychological insights probe the goings-on at St Florians. A parallel plot is running, in which Max is seduced by a Hungarian violinist, but eventually comes back to the straight and narrow path of his affection for a young Englishwoman. The story is well-written and gripping, sufficiently for the BBC to offer a radio dramatisation in 2008. It perfectly portrays the atmosphere of classical Vienna and the story is leavened with much description and information about music, the two main characters frequently singing together before their brandy and cigars.
An excellent piece of nostalgic escapism, moulded into the form of a "who-did-what". The author is a practising clinical psychologist, so he knows what he's talking about – and he knows a devil of a lot about music, too!
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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