Hvězdná hodina vrahů

by Pavel Kohout

The bloody ironies of World War II have inspired several fine mysteries, including J. Robert Janes's books about a German and French pair of detectives (Mannequin, Salamander) and Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy. Now the noted Czech author and revolutionary Pavel Kohout adds his unique voice to this very select group.

Her placid beauty (he could describe it no other way) was even more vivid in the near-darkness; her eternally sleepy voice moved him, though she was merely explaining that she had not been waiting long; no, she had just come outside, because it occurred to her they'd have trouble finding the house. He opened the rear right door for her and then got in on the other side. What sort of rare perfume was she wearing, he almost asked, before he realized that it was the smell of soap.

That's Kohout (through translator Neil Bermel, who also did Kohout's previous novel, I Am Snowing) describing an encounter between a young and relatively idealistic Czech detective and a woman who might provide a clue to who in 1945 Occupied Prague is murdering and mutilating the widows of war heroes.

Like Janes, Kohout makes his two cops an intriguing set: the young Czech, Morava, is partnered with a Gestapo officer, Buback, who turns out to have Czech origins and a secret agenda. While ostensibly keeping an eye on the Prague police for his superiors, Buback is also helping his Czech comrades prepare for the day when Germany will be defeated. That's a lot of history and social significance for a mystery novel, but Kohout has the heart and muscle to hold it all together. --Dick Adler

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Mystery Thriller, World War II, Czech Literature

416 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Pavel Kohout is a Czech and Austrian novelist, playwright, and poet. He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, a Prague Spring exponent and dissident in the 1970s until he was expelled to Austria. He was a founding member of the Charter 77 movement.

Reviews

[Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think living in the Czech Republic for many years and understanding this strange attempt to straddle surviving repeated conquests versus fighting for your country helped me understand the internal struggles going on here, and the opportunity to kick people when they're down in a show of "bravery" is universal. Taking a murder thriller and setting it in the middle of total chaos was brilliant, something I haven't seen since perhaps Len Deighton's "SS-GB", and it's historical part was reminiscent of Caleb Carr's "The Alienist." i really enjoyed this because it was three stories in one and had an ending which fit the ambiguity of the time.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This mystery novel is about a Czech detective and a German Gestapo agent trying to catch a serial killer in Nazi-occupied Prague at the very end of World War II. The writing is superb, and the plot twists and turns until the very last page. The book is an excellent mystery novel, as well as an excellent commentary on human nature.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part serial killer procedural, part war novel, the combination makes for an intriguing read.

While the crime story elements are all very familiar, the setting and the characters elevate the story beyond the limits of that storyline. By setting the story in Prague toward the end of World War II, the author has created a unique political and moral environment that raises a number of interesting questions.

Tragic, thought-provoking, and well-paced (it might be slow for some, but the pace always felt appropriate to the story), a solid read. Often times, books in translation can be hit-or-miss in terms of the writing, but I found the prose to be fluid.

The book was recommended to me and usually I'm not that interested in serial killer stories (I'll save that rant for another time), but in the environment that the story was set, this novel worked.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't say that I greatly enjoyed the writing style, but the story is great. WWII just before the end of the war, Prague still occupied by the Nazis, resistance growng fast, the Germans know they're about to lose but all play it cool. The country's boiling underneath. In this setting we meet various characters on both sides ... chief among them a serial killer. As they would today, he lives his blood lust in secrecy ,,, but when all hell breaks loose, he joins the resistance and suddenly finds that he's allowed to enjoy his blood lust in the open - and be considered a leader for it! Through all this a young cop tries to find the killer, needless to say, it gets harder and harder knce WWII ends and the equilibrium of everything changes. Worth the read - good history lesson and very unusual serial killer tale.

[Jeremy Hornik · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrific thriller. It's sort of like "Red Dragon", if "Red Dragon" were set in a city occupied by increasingly lame-duck Nazis, everything has deep political implications, and the main characters were two civil detectives, a Czech and a German, who just want to get their jobs done. A fantastic page-turner. The last half of the book, set in the five days of the 1945 Prague uprising, kept me up reading until after midnight.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrific detective/political novel set in Prague in the dying days of WW2. The key protagonists, a young native Czech police detective and a German of Czech heritage investigate a serial murderer. The action moves between the psychopathic murderer and the two detectives trying make headway as the clarity of Germany's withdrawal from much of Europe becomes a reality. The political weight moves from the German detective - Czechoslovakia was a protectorate of Nazi Germany - to the Czech detective, while the sensitivity of these relationships and relative importance of finding and stopping the serial murderer are contextualised in a Prague that is on the brink of Civil War.

Authentic and enjoyable.

[Sabina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un Thriller fascinante mezclado con la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Una guerra que hizo que un psicópata pudiera matar a sus anchas y sin restricciones.
Aunque es una novela de ficción, me ha gustado muchísimo.

[Eric_W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kohout is a Czech writer who was one of the leaders of the 1968 Prague Spring revolt. His work was ruthlessly suppressed for twenty years. This mystery of his is set in Prague during the later years of W.W. II.
The complexities of wartime Czechoslovakia are rendered as an engrossing mystery story. A psychopathic killer is murdering widows. The Gestapo take little interest until a German resident is killed and the investigation begins to show a pattern and links to other killings. Erwin Buback, until now an unquestioning Gestapo agent and Jan Morava, a Czech police detective, are determined to track down the killer. Buback’s wife and daughter had been killed in a stray bombing of the farm where they had been sent to prevent just such an occurrence. He had his wife had always been loyal Nazis with little reason to question Hitler’s judgment until his invasion of Russia and Hilda, a teacher, brings home a map showing the vast expanses of Russia compared to tiny Europe. “A cartographic anomaly,” is Buback’s response.
But in the midst of the investigation, Buback become haunted by the deviant thought. “Could Hitler somehow derive some perverted satisfaction from the worldwide butchery he’d unleashed as the unknown murderer did from his slaughter of women?” The story becomes an allegory for the poisonous influence of ideology as the killer's motives become revealed as being committed in the name of a higher calling. The hunt for the killer breaks down in the chaos of the Allies’ inexorable pressure from the east and west. The world is turned upside down as right becomes wrong and evil becomes good as “the need for retribution clashed with the fear of becoming just like the men who so recently murdered their loved ones.”

[Steph Clayton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had such high hopes for this book. It was an impulse read that I found in my hotel room, and it started out so good. Set in Czechoslovakia during Germany's occupation in WWII, I was eager to learn a little more about the war from this perspective -- especially since the author is Czech. The vagueness of the murderer and his motives were reminiscent of Dan Brown's Silas from The DaVinci Code and made the beginning of this book a page turner, and then...it stopped. There was a total shift in the book after Hitler commits suicide and it's like the book loses it's direction. I felt like Kohout was trying to convey the chaos that occurred when Germany's fate was unknown, but it took away from the core of the story, and what the book was name for -- the widow killer. It turned from a murder mystery to a struggle of morality and in the end, watered down the effectiveness of either narrative -- the murders and the case of morality. To top it off, it ended so abruptly and without resolution on either end. I have to wonder if something got lost in the translation to English...but still, it left me disappointed and a little bit confused.

[Lynn Weber · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting mystery/crime novel set in the last months of the Nazi occupation of Prague. A German Gestapo agent is assigned to help a young Czech policeman work on a serial-killer case, and in the course of the investigation the two break through their political barriers and become friendly. In the end their ability to relate to each other personally provides them both with a safety net during the difficult transition as the Nazis prepare to retreat. I particularly enjoyed the reminder of how very difficult things were, even in the process of liberation.

[Adrienne · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been so long since I could read for pleasure that I forgot what it was like to stay up late because I couldn't wait until the next night to see how it ended. It's rather gory and does NOT have a fairy tale ending, but I was thoroughly entertained.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: in Prague during the final months of the Nazi occupation, a killer consumed by his own psychopathic agenda stalks his victims.

[Edna Nová · Rating 4 out of 5]

Přišlo mi to dobrý. Docela by se mi to líbilo jako zástupce české literatury třeba k maturitní četbě. Je to čtenářsky dost dostupné a zachycuje věrně důležitý úsek českých dějin.

[Steffen Rehner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bedrückend.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Prague, during World War II, this novel blends the genre line between historical fiction and literary mystery into a quite pleasurable read. The richly described setting revolves around a quite interesting murder case. Kohout manages to bring together characters from opposite sides of the War, and makes them both surprisingly sympathetic as they work together to solve this string of ghastly murders. The tension - from both the murders and the War - mounts with more tragic events and a few too many Homeward Bound-style near misses, making the book hard to put down.

As well as entertaining, I found the book to be somewhat educational as well. While I knew many of the generalities of Prague’s WWII history, this book really opened up a lot of the details. And for a translated novel, the fast pace and use of language all flowed naturally and kept me completely engrossed in the story. It really felt like a flawless translation - and a thoroughly enjoyable read!

[Anna Prejanò · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ultimi giorni del Terzo Reich a Praga. La polizia criminale indaga su un assassino seriale mentre la città precipita nel caos e si prepara a passare dal regime nazista a quello comunista.
Non avrei mai letto un libro con questo soggetto se non fosse stato scritto da Pavel Kohout, autore di uno dei romanzi che più ho amato ultimamente: "La carnefice".
A Kohout la storia del proprio Paese (da cui fu espulso) sta molto a cuore, ed è capace di raccontare come andarono le cose in modo più chiaro di qualsiasi libro di storia, attraverso personaggi che hanno la rara qualità di incarnare caratteri universali pur avendo una personalità individuale che li rende unici.
La tragedia è totale, non si salva (quasi) nessuno. L'amore opera un incantamento salvifico di breve durata ma forse per quello sarà valsa la pena di essere vissuti. Per aver scoperto, cioè - cosa che non a tutti tocca in sorte - che l'amore vero non è quello che incatena, ma quello che rende liberi.

[Antonio Marín · Rating 5 out of 5]

Novela imprescindible que mezcla extraordinariamente la novela policíaca con la novela histórica.

[El · Rating 1 out of 5]

Czechoslovakia. World War II. Serial killer.

One would think I would have been all over this one, all of the elements were in place for what should have been a thoroughly gripping book. I was even looking forward to reading it. Even with the setting and the story and all of the other details I should have been jonesing for, I never once got into this book. I read the entire thing, I tried to care even a little bit about any of the characters, but I absolutely could not. I kept reading in order to learn something maybe about the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, or to feel some tingle of emotion or interest for any of the people involved, but I learned nothing and I felt nothing. I hoped that reading a book by someone so involved in Charta 77 and the Prague Spring would hold my interest; sadly it did not and now I don't know if I want to read anything else by Kohout.

[Özgür Özer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Çek yazar Kohout'un orijinal adı Hvezdna Hodina Vrahu olan eseri. Kohout belki de yaşayan en büyük Çek yazar. Aynı zamanda Prag Baharının sözcülerinden. Charta 77'yi (77 Bildirgesi) hazırlayan birkaç kalemden biri. Hatta bu yüzden 1979'da vatandaşlıktan çıkarılmış. Dul Kasabı'nı yeni bir türde yazmış: politik polisiye. Oldukça yeni ve güzel bir tür. Kitap önce Çekçe'den Almanca'ya, sonra Almanca'dan Türkçe'ye çevrilmiş. Sıkıntılı bir durum. Bu yüzden zor anlaşılan yerleri var. Fakat Türkiye'de oldukça popüler. Yüksek tempo ve gerilim dikkat çekiyor. Sahneler biraz fazla çabuk değişiyor. Beş on satırlık bir tasvirden sonra başka bir mekâna geçiliyor. Okuyucuyu yorabiliyor. Beş üzerinden üç verdim.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

My grandfather actually worked for the police in Prague at the end of WWII. This is an amazing book, that describes the complexity of real people, living in terrible and complicated times. What I like about the narrative is that the reader is living through the collapse of the Reich, along with the characters. I felt the hope that they had for a peaceful liberation, and yet, knowing history, I knew what was to come. Some reviewers feel that this book is too political, but as a Czech who left in 1969, I can't separate politics from my life. I don't know if other Czechs feel the same, or whether you need to be an old Czech to give this novel a 5 star rating. For me it was a very personal story. I can't say I 'enjoyed' it, but I found it intelligent and emotional.

[Jenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to admit, I finally gave up on this after a long slog. I enjoyed the first half and looked forward to the dramatic capture of the serial killer. The depiction of Prague during the Nazi occupation was interesting, especially considering the first hand knowledge of the author. But, Mr. Kohout got overly fond of his story and refused to reach a conclusion. He was really telling two stories, a history of Czechoslovakia under the Nazis and a police procedural. He was not successful at doing both; perhaps too much historical detail. I wanted to see what happened to Buback (the German Gestapo with a wavering allegiance) and Morava (the young Czech detective). Eventually, I just got bored.

[Pampeliskove Chmyri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bylo by to skoro perfektní nebýt trochu useknutého konce a mé únavy z psychopatických vrahů. Asi je čas dát si mírný oddech od detektivek.

Ale jinak - perfektní zamýšlecí linka německé otázky a kolektivní viny během pražského povstání, dynamické vyprávění, něco jsem se přiučila (například vím, proč do té řady domů mohli postavit tančící dům...). Snad jen - bylo nutné léčit si vlastní mrzutosti tou poslední kapitolou. Dobře, přidalo to další bod k zamyšlení, ale pouze ho to nakouslo a ta poslední věta o největší chybě v životě už mi prostě neseděla.

[El_insoportable · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buen libro, como novela negra, es la menos "negra" que he leido, pero engancha igual.
La novela tiene dos tempos, el primero transcurre en los tres meses posteriores al asesinato de la primera viuda y la segunda, de un ritmo mas intenso, los últimos días de la ocupación nazi en Checoslovaquia. La trama esta bien, te mantiene en vilo. Pero lo mas sobresaliente de la novela son los temas relacionadas con el fin de la guerra, a destacar los siguientes.
- la inminente caída del Tercer Reich que supondría el fin del Protectorado, con consiguiente cambio de régimen

[Sherrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is a good story and well written, but with nazis and a sadistic sicko serial killer, it can be pretty dark at times and i have to put it down for a time lest i begin to fear fear the dark, like a child.

It was overdue at the library and I just could not muster the enthusiasm to finish it. I had better books to read. Not that this isn't a good one, but I did had to kind of make myself read it.

[Esperanza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the evocation of Prague; I lived there for a time and enjoyed that the author so vividly mapped the city with streets, neighborhoods, and landmarks. I do get the charge that is gained by setting the murder mystery during nazi occupation, however, I felt that the political passages could be rather slow and found myself skimming here and there. I liked the relationship between Buback and Jan.

The novel is indeed sad and dark; not a romanticized tale for sure, with unexpected deaths.

[Janellyn51 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot. I didn't/don't know too much about Checkoslovakia in WW11 or Prague Spring and all of that, so I learned a little something. I liked most of the characters...Grete kind of bugged me...or maybe I just don't like the title my love....that bugs me. It was a good story, suspenseful...I like Jan a lot, not just because my name is Jan...I think the book is interesting mostly because of the man who wrote it.

[Celeste · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story here takes place in Prague as the end of WWII is nearing. The Germans are afraid that the Czechs will take their anger out on them personally for the crimes of the Reich. The Czechs are afraid that they will bear the brunt of the German wrath if they try to organize and nationalize. The whole thing plays out against a plotline of a murdering psychopath as the police try to catch him. Suspenseful at first, slow and boring in the end.

[Sam Reaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

A serial killer is on the loose in occupied Prague late in World War II, and a young Czech detective is teamed with a Gestapo officer to reel him in. The German is beginning to think he's on the wrong side; the Czech just wants to survive the war so he and his sweetheart can have a family... The looming collapse of the Third Reich complicates everything. Blood and intrigue in a complicated thriller.

[Pavlína · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kniha poskytující plastický obraz Prahy pár dní před koncem druhé světové války. Různé osobnostní typy členů tehdejší společnosti jsou líčeny na pozadí vyšetřování případu sériového vraha a je nutno podotknout a ocenit, že nazírání těchto typů rozhodně není černobílé, nedochází ke generalizacím a z příběhu je cítit usilovná snaha o vylíčení tehdejší komplikované situace co nejvyváženěji.

[Estibaliz · Rating 4 out of 5]

El título en español ('La Hora Estelar de los Asesinos') probablemente no le hace justicia... Novela negra de ambientación histórica: final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial en Praga (Checoslovaquia).

Ideal para los que disfrutaron con 'El Niño 44'...