Melville international crime

"1927, Breslau, Poland: Two elaborate and sadistic murders are discovered within days of each other. The body of an unknown musician, bound and gagged, is found in the walls of a shoemaker's workshop--he's been sealed in alive. Elsewhere in the city, the mutilated body of a locksmith is found. Next to each victim is a torn-out calendar page, with the day of the death marked in blood. Nothing else seems to connect the cases. It falls to Criminal Councilor Eberhard Mock to uncover the link, the mystery taking him deep into the Breslau underground, a scene of bars and bordellos so sordid as to be nearly supernatural, and where seedy aristocrats trade in valuable information ... and where, it becomes clear, a serial killer lurks. Meanwhile, Mock's own hard-drinking nocturnal habits soon threaten his volatile marriage, and prompt some strange behavior from his young wife ... and before long, his team will be investigating not only two of the grisliest murders in the city's history, but Mock's own wife"--Publisher description.

Breslau, 1919. The hideously battered bodies of four young sailors are discovered on an island in the River Oder. When Inspector Mock arrives at the scene to investigate, he discovers a note addressed to him, asking him to confess his sins and to become a believer. As he endeavours to piece together the elements of this brutal crime, Mock combs brothels and drinking dens of Breslau and is drawn into an insidious game by the murderer; ultimately he uncovers a secret society which appears to have the Inspector himself in its sights.

Wanting out of high-stress detective work, Simon Brenner takes a calming job as a chauffeur, shuttling a two-year-old girl back and forth in a soothing ride along the Autobahn between her father, a construction tycoon in Munich, and her mother, an abortion doctor in Vienna. Except then one day he stops at a gas station to buy the little girl a chocolate bar and comes back to find she's been kidnapped ... and suddenly he's out of a job, thoroughly stressed out, and a detective again.

Pepe Carvalho, ex-cop, ex-marxist and constant gourmet, is hired to investigate the identity of a man pulled out of the sea with a tattoo that reads, "born to raise hell in hell".