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Fenêtres sur la nuit
1939. Tandis que l’étau nazi se resserre autour de Vienne, une série d’assassinats sordides plonge les résidents d’un immeuble dans l’angoisse. C’est toutefois pour élucider le meurtre de son chien que Speckstein, professeur déchu et espion à la solde du Parti, fait appel au docteur Anton Beer, qui a étudié la psychologie juridique.
L’une des patientes de Beer, la jeune et troublante Zuzka, passe ses nuits à épier ses voisins depuis sa fenêtre, d’où elle tente de briser les silences et de déchiffrer les secrets murmurés derrière les portes closes. Et si l’un d’eux avait du sang sur les mains ? À une époque où la présomption d’innocence dépend de la maîtrise de l’art du déguisement et de la dissimulation, il arrive que les fenêtres se transforment en miroirs…
Livre noir empreint d’un esprit cinématographique rappelant l’expressionnisme allemand, roman social paranoïaque baigné d’une inquiétante étrangeté, Fenêtres sur la nuit navigue sur la mince frontière séparant la pulsion de mort de l’instinct de survie, là où se rencontrent les meurtriers, les lâches et les innocents.
Traduit de l'anglais par Dominique Fortier
L’une des patientes de Beer, la jeune et troublante Zuzka, passe ses nuits à épier ses voisins depuis sa fenêtre, d’où elle tente de briser les silences et de déchiffrer les secrets murmurés derrière les portes closes. Et si l’un d’eux avait du sang sur les mains ? À une époque où la présomption d’innocence dépend de la maîtrise de l’art du déguisement et de la dissimulation, il arrive que les fenêtres se transforment en miroirs…
Livre noir empreint d’un esprit cinématographique rappelant l’expressionnisme allemand, roman social paranoïaque baigné d’une inquiétante étrangeté, Fenêtres sur la nuit navigue sur la mince frontière séparant la pulsion de mort de l’instinct de survie, là où se rencontrent les meurtriers, les lâches et les innocents.
Traduit de l'anglais par Dominique Fortier
592 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
19 people are currently reading
658 people want to read
About the author
Dan Vyleta
7 books205 followersBorn to Czech emigre parents, Dan Vyleta is an inveterate migrant who has lived in Germany, Canada, the USA and the UK. Dan’s debut novel Pavel & I gathered immediate international acclaim and was translated into eight languages. His second novel, The Quiet Twin, was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize; his third, The Crooked Maid, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and winner of the J.I. Segal Award. His writing has been compared to works by Greene, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Hitchcock, Nabokov, Murnau and Grass, giving him some modicum of hope that he has found a voice all his own. When not reading or writing novels, Dan Vyleta watches cop shows, or listens to CDs from his embarrassingly large collection of Jazz albums.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
December 13, 2020
5 "grotesque, macabre, nihilistic" stars !!
2017 Bronze Award (3rd Favorite Read)
Whew....lordy lordy lordy....this was obscene and obscenely magnificent !!
Late 1930's Vienna. A series of murders in a neighbourhood. Are they linked or random ?? Is it a serial killer or opportunistic murders done for a bit of money ?? There are many witnesses yet all are silent or are they ??
A small apartment complex. A disgraced doctor and Nazi spy. His hysterical niece with a conversion disorder. His bitter and sneaky housekeeper. A paralyzed woman who may have been a true psychic. Her brother, a mime. Upstairs a psychiatrist with a few secrets of his own. A janitor who is into a grisly business. A sweet hunchbacked girl and her alcoholic father. A japanese trumpeter. A corrupt and sadistic police detective. These characters are all intertwined and the story twists and turns with sex, lies, assaults, collusions, confusions and a small smattering of compassion and love.
The writing is dark, ominous, organic, clipped and thrilling. Chapter after chapter gets darker, bleaker and more frightening. I often shivered, my stomach turned in disgust and tears came down my cheeks as underneath the manipulations are tender vulnerabilites and profound frailties.
This book is ugly and frightening and fuck it...A MUST READ !!
Well done Mr. Vyleta. Look forward to your other novels !!
2017 Bronze Award (3rd Favorite Read)
Whew....lordy lordy lordy....this was obscene and obscenely magnificent !!
Late 1930's Vienna. A series of murders in a neighbourhood. Are they linked or random ?? Is it a serial killer or opportunistic murders done for a bit of money ?? There are many witnesses yet all are silent or are they ??
A small apartment complex. A disgraced doctor and Nazi spy. His hysterical niece with a conversion disorder. His bitter and sneaky housekeeper. A paralyzed woman who may have been a true psychic. Her brother, a mime. Upstairs a psychiatrist with a few secrets of his own. A janitor who is into a grisly business. A sweet hunchbacked girl and her alcoholic father. A japanese trumpeter. A corrupt and sadistic police detective. These characters are all intertwined and the story twists and turns with sex, lies, assaults, collusions, confusions and a small smattering of compassion and love.
The writing is dark, ominous, organic, clipped and thrilling. Chapter after chapter gets darker, bleaker and more frightening. I often shivered, my stomach turned in disgust and tears came down my cheeks as underneath the manipulations are tender vulnerabilites and profound frailties.
This book is ugly and frightening and fuck it...A MUST READ !!
Well done Mr. Vyleta. Look forward to your other novels !!
October 4, 2015
This book is set around a group of apartment buildings in Vienna, during October and November 1939. The characters range from a doctor, a disgraced professor and his niece, a mime artist, a janitor, a young hunchbacked girl and a Japanese trumpeter, amongst others. In other words, a cross section of people, living side by side in dangerous times and many with secrets to hide.
Dr Anton Beer is asked to visit the disgraced professor, Speckstein, who asks him to investigate the murder of his dog. Beer becomes aware of a series of murders and attacks which have taken place near to his apartment building and reluctantly becomes involved in the police investigation, although the murders are really incidental to the real story, which is that of the characters. Becoming involved with the police at that time, in that place, is a dangerous thing to be and Beer tries desperately to keep his private life private, while becoming more and more embroiled in the police enquiry. The detective, Teuben, is also an excellently creepy villain – poking and prying through Dr Beer’s life and the secrets of both him and his fellow neighbours.
The author tells this story so vividly that I found it easy to imagine the windows overlooking the courtyards; the nosy neighbours, turned informers, who could know something about you which could be dangerous. You can feel the menace of uniforms, especially in an excellent scene set during a party effectively gate crashed by members of the party, as war entered the lives of normal people. Dr Beer is a sympathetic and very believable hero. Altogether a wonderful book, very atmospheric and brilliantly written. “The Crooked Maid,” also features characters from this first book and I look forward to reading on, as I enjoyed this very much.
Dr Anton Beer is asked to visit the disgraced professor, Speckstein, who asks him to investigate the murder of his dog. Beer becomes aware of a series of murders and attacks which have taken place near to his apartment building and reluctantly becomes involved in the police investigation, although the murders are really incidental to the real story, which is that of the characters. Becoming involved with the police at that time, in that place, is a dangerous thing to be and Beer tries desperately to keep his private life private, while becoming more and more embroiled in the police enquiry. The detective, Teuben, is also an excellently creepy villain – poking and prying through Dr Beer’s life and the secrets of both him and his fellow neighbours.
The author tells this story so vividly that I found it easy to imagine the windows overlooking the courtyards; the nosy neighbours, turned informers, who could know something about you which could be dangerous. You can feel the menace of uniforms, especially in an excellent scene set during a party effectively gate crashed by members of the party, as war entered the lives of normal people. Dr Beer is a sympathetic and very believable hero. Altogether a wonderful book, very atmospheric and brilliantly written. “The Crooked Maid,” also features characters from this first book and I look forward to reading on, as I enjoyed this very much.
June 26, 2017
From the Author's Note at the end of The Quiet Twin, Dan Vyleta states:
This is an issue that I keep coming back to in my reading lately: whether it's the Rwandan Genocide or the Salem Witch Hunt or, yes, even with the Nazis, it's so easy to judge people's actions in retrospect; to say that I would never have been caught up in some blood lust against former neighbours. But in every one of these historical cases, the perpetrators were people exactly like me -- ordinary, peaceful -- who somehow, slowly, became something else. But as Vyleta states above, The Quiet Twin isn't about the blood lust but something perhaps more insidious; the kind of small betrayals that maybe we all are capable of, that we might not even judge ourselves harshly for. Would I hoard sausages, hoping to make a killing on the black market? Would I rat out a neighbour for a letter of introduction? Would I watch at the windows, listen at the pipes?
Set in Vienna in 1939, The Quiet Twin is situated in an apartment complex with an inner courtyard; the kind of place that makes it very easy for neighbours to spy on each other through their open windows; an occupation that goes beyond mere curiosity as the country ramps up for war and the local police assume new and absolute powers. As the story begins, there have been a series of local murders, including that of a dog owned by the building's own Zellenwart (a disgraced former professor who was able to secure a minor title from the local Nazi Party, a man who now, essentially, acts as a spy in the neighbourhood). Paranoia grips the residents, and their actions, half seen and mostly misinterpreted by each other, lead to whispered theories and accusations. A resident physician, Dr. Beer, is asked to bring his special training to bear on the police files, which he is reluctant to do since it involves his long-disavowed knowledge of forbidden teachings; those of Sigmund Freud.
Every character who is introduced has a secret to hide and meetings between them tend to be awkward and guarded -- even between would-be lovers. The only one who seems willing to seek and offer friendship is the pirouetting young hunchback, Anneliese, but even she is shielding her drunken father from the others. As an aside:
Something about this book may have been too clever for me and I wish I had understood it on all its levels (did Freud have anything in particular to say about twins? A brief google points me to The Uncanny). When Eva, the beautiful but paralysed and mute woman is introduced, I thought, "Aha, the quiet twin." But then again, her brother, her twin, is a mime. And then later we learn that Zuzka has a dead twin -- and isn't that the quietest of all? And from accusations of rape against young fortune-tellers, which leave them mute, to attempted rape against a helpless invalid, there is a repetition of the idea of exercising power over those who can't protest. This even happens with Zuzka and Dr. Beer (two seemingly self-controlled people): In the opening scene, when the physician is asked to examine the intermittently paralysed young woman, he needs to restrain himself from touching her inappropriately. And later:
The Quiet Twin was a fascinating read that captured the tension and paranoia of the time, most especially in the character of the police detective, Teuben; a man who would rather beat a confession out of slow-witted youth than actually solve the murders he has on file. From his control of Speckstein's dinner party to his insistence that Dr. Beer change his autopsy findings, it's obvious that the common citizen had rapidly lost his rights -- and the book isn't even about the deportation of Jews or the concentration camps or full out war, just the period right before when the Viennese were trying to figure out what was about to happen and how they could survive it.
And back to the big question -- what would I have done to survive it? Hoard the sausages or hide the invalids? I know what I'd like to think of myself but am not anxious to be put to the test.
My primary interest in this book belonged with the army of opportunists whose crimes at times were as grave in their consequences as those perpetrated by the true believers. Sixty-five years after the Second World War it is easy for most of us to convince ourselves that we could never have belonged amongst those who would have held wrong-headed beliefs; it is a more nagging question to wonder what one might have done in order to secure some modicum of social and material success.
This is an issue that I keep coming back to in my reading lately: whether it's the Rwandan Genocide or the Salem Witch Hunt or, yes, even with the Nazis, it's so easy to judge people's actions in retrospect; to say that I would never have been caught up in some blood lust against former neighbours. But in every one of these historical cases, the perpetrators were people exactly like me -- ordinary, peaceful -- who somehow, slowly, became something else. But as Vyleta states above, The Quiet Twin isn't about the blood lust but something perhaps more insidious; the kind of small betrayals that maybe we all are capable of, that we might not even judge ourselves harshly for. Would I hoard sausages, hoping to make a killing on the black market? Would I rat out a neighbour for a letter of introduction? Would I watch at the windows, listen at the pipes?
Set in Vienna in 1939, The Quiet Twin is situated in an apartment complex with an inner courtyard; the kind of place that makes it very easy for neighbours to spy on each other through their open windows; an occupation that goes beyond mere curiosity as the country ramps up for war and the local police assume new and absolute powers. As the story begins, there have been a series of local murders, including that of a dog owned by the building's own Zellenwart (a disgraced former professor who was able to secure a minor title from the local Nazi Party, a man who now, essentially, acts as a spy in the neighbourhood). Paranoia grips the residents, and their actions, half seen and mostly misinterpreted by each other, lead to whispered theories and accusations. A resident physician, Dr. Beer, is asked to bring his special training to bear on the police files, which he is reluctant to do since it involves his long-disavowed knowledge of forbidden teachings; those of Sigmund Freud.
Every character who is introduced has a secret to hide and meetings between them tend to be awkward and guarded -- even between would-be lovers. The only one who seems willing to seek and offer friendship is the pirouetting young hunchback, Anneliese, but even she is shielding her drunken father from the others. As an aside:
Something about this book may have been too clever for me and I wish I had understood it on all its levels (did Freud have anything in particular to say about twins? A brief google points me to The Uncanny). When Eva, the beautiful but paralysed and mute woman is introduced, I thought, "Aha, the quiet twin." But then again, her brother, her twin, is a mime. And then later we learn that Zuzka has a dead twin -- and isn't that the quietest of all? And from accusations of rape against young fortune-tellers, which leave them mute, to attempted rape against a helpless invalid, there is a repetition of the idea of exercising power over those who can't protest. This even happens with Zuzka and Dr. Beer (two seemingly self-controlled people): In the opening scene, when the physician is asked to examine the intermittently paralysed young woman, he needs to restrain himself from touching her inappropriately. And later:
When she woke, she was surprised at first to find him there, slumped low in his seat, his chin on his chest, and a line of wet where he was leaking from the mouth. His hands had dropped to either side of the chair, hung lifeless, like the limbs of a marionette. It was easy at this moment to think of him as hers, to play with at her leisure, and she reached out at once to touch his beard, like a schoolgirl on a dare. He was handsome even in his sleep, perhaps more so: a closed man, buttoned up in his soul, the eyes like peeled almonds, half hidden under the broad brow. It was tempting to spend an hour just touching him; lie there, slide a hand upon his thigh. Then she remembered why she had asked him to stay the night and shot up in her bed; shook his shoulder in passing and ran to the window.
The Quiet Twin was a fascinating read that captured the tension and paranoia of the time, most especially in the character of the police detective, Teuben; a man who would rather beat a confession out of slow-witted youth than actually solve the murders he has on file. From his control of Speckstein's dinner party to his insistence that Dr. Beer change his autopsy findings, it's obvious that the common citizen had rapidly lost his rights -- and the book isn't even about the deportation of Jews or the concentration camps or full out war, just the period right before when the Viennese were trying to figure out what was about to happen and how they could survive it.
And back to the big question -- what would I have done to survive it? Hoard the sausages or hide the invalids? I know what I'd like to think of myself but am not anxious to be put to the test.
September 20, 2020
Set in an apparently ordinary apartment complex in 1939 Vienna 'The Quiet Twin' gives an interesting insight in to the growing menace of National Socialism within the country at the time. The tenants a microcosm for the terrifying realities which are to come.
The apartments are inhabited by an weird assortment of characters, all either sick or oddly eccentric. There is 9 year-old Lieshen who lives with her alcoholic father; the teenage hypochondriac niece of a disgraced Professor who is working for the Party as a Zellenwart (a neighbourhood spy) in the hope of regaining some of his lost standing, who fakes illness in the hope of gaining some romantic attention and whose own twin sister died about 10 years previously; a Japanese trumpeter who seems to witness all of his neighbours indiscretions; an English teacher who sells her body for sex as a side line; an amputee survivor of the Great War; and a mime artist and his twin sister, Eva, who is paralysed from the neck down.
When Zuzka, the niece of the disgraced Professor, persuades their housekeeper to contact Dr. Anton Beer, another resident of the building, and bring him to see her for her health issues one night, he quickly learns that Zuzka is more interested in her romantic rather than her physical health. However, whilst he is there she takes him to her bedroom window and has him look out and into the private lives of many of the other residents.
Gradually as reader learns about the private lives of the apartment block's residents, including Dr. Beer himself, newly single after his wife has left him, we realise that everyone has something to hide. So when Prof. Speckstein’s old and much-loved dog is found murdered and disembowelled, it brings the apartment block to the unwanted attention of the Police, in particular the sadistic Tueben, and leads to a further series of grisly murders which will affect them all. As the tension escalates however, the reader soon realises that this isn't a murder mystery tale but one about growing paranoia.
Rather astutely,before each section of this novel, Vyleta recounts the brief history of a real person from the past, which parallels not only the action within the story but also the socio-political atmosphere in the city. For example, Peter Kurten, at age nine watched his uncle slaughtering dogs, and then went on to become a serial killer himself in the late 1890s. I felt that these parallels between past and present made the action that then followed far more vivid.
Although Otto Frei, the mime artist, and his sister are twins, as are Zuzka and her sister Dasa, the real “twins” of this novel’s title are the ones that everyone has. The private selves that only we can know and the public one that others see. The suggestion being that it is each person’s own “quiet twin” which enables him/her to survive, sometimes at the expense of others, in fraught times.
The story was generally well written with a certain amount of black humour. However, where this book was let down IMHO was in the characterisation of Anton Beer himself. Personally I felt that he lacked the necessary depth to really compliment the growing horror going on around him which was a real shame as overall I felt that this was an interesting concept.
The apartments are inhabited by an weird assortment of characters, all either sick or oddly eccentric. There is 9 year-old Lieshen who lives with her alcoholic father; the teenage hypochondriac niece of a disgraced Professor who is working for the Party as a Zellenwart (a neighbourhood spy) in the hope of regaining some of his lost standing, who fakes illness in the hope of gaining some romantic attention and whose own twin sister died about 10 years previously; a Japanese trumpeter who seems to witness all of his neighbours indiscretions; an English teacher who sells her body for sex as a side line; an amputee survivor of the Great War; and a mime artist and his twin sister, Eva, who is paralysed from the neck down.
When Zuzka, the niece of the disgraced Professor, persuades their housekeeper to contact Dr. Anton Beer, another resident of the building, and bring him to see her for her health issues one night, he quickly learns that Zuzka is more interested in her romantic rather than her physical health. However, whilst he is there she takes him to her bedroom window and has him look out and into the private lives of many of the other residents.
Gradually as reader learns about the private lives of the apartment block's residents, including Dr. Beer himself, newly single after his wife has left him, we realise that everyone has something to hide. So when Prof. Speckstein’s old and much-loved dog is found murdered and disembowelled, it brings the apartment block to the unwanted attention of the Police, in particular the sadistic Tueben, and leads to a further series of grisly murders which will affect them all. As the tension escalates however, the reader soon realises that this isn't a murder mystery tale but one about growing paranoia.
Rather astutely,before each section of this novel, Vyleta recounts the brief history of a real person from the past, which parallels not only the action within the story but also the socio-political atmosphere in the city. For example, Peter Kurten, at age nine watched his uncle slaughtering dogs, and then went on to become a serial killer himself in the late 1890s. I felt that these parallels between past and present made the action that then followed far more vivid.
Although Otto Frei, the mime artist, and his sister are twins, as are Zuzka and her sister Dasa, the real “twins” of this novel’s title are the ones that everyone has. The private selves that only we can know and the public one that others see. The suggestion being that it is each person’s own “quiet twin” which enables him/her to survive, sometimes at the expense of others, in fraught times.
The story was generally well written with a certain amount of black humour. However, where this book was let down IMHO was in the characterisation of Anton Beer himself. Personally I felt that he lacked the necessary depth to really compliment the growing horror going on around him which was a real shame as overall I felt that this was an interesting concept.
July 23, 2014
As I will have a full FBC rv close to its publication next year (I read an earc of the US edition, though the UK edition is out) only some points:
- a very dark novel written in a somewhat whimsical tone that most of the time tones down the horrors
- excellent atmosphere and memorable characters mostly set in a Viennese housing complex that in the spirit of the times mixed the better off with working poor and was supervised in the name of the Reich by a chief administrator/informer that worked hand in hand with the Gestapo and the police; the one here is an unusual one as being a formerly very respected University professor and physician that was tried for child rape (though acquitted) some years ago and finds National Socialism a good vehicle for his revenge on the Viennese society that shunned him after the trial
- mostly historical fiction and people looking for a mystery will be disappointed as there is no real such despite the talked about murders and the dog
- Vienna October-November 1939; the war has started, the Jews have been beaten and kicked out, though their murder is still only sporadic, the mentally sick and physically disabled are starting to be killed in hospitals for the good of the race, or at least this is what the characters believe (the actual killings started mostly in 1940, but rumors have been going around earlier), while forced sterilizations have been done for a while now
-integrity is rare, corruption and violence are common
- great interludes from the press of the times that read stranger than fiction
Excellent novel and highly recommended
- a very dark novel written in a somewhat whimsical tone that most of the time tones down the horrors
- excellent atmosphere and memorable characters mostly set in a Viennese housing complex that in the spirit of the times mixed the better off with working poor and was supervised in the name of the Reich by a chief administrator/informer that worked hand in hand with the Gestapo and the police; the one here is an unusual one as being a formerly very respected University professor and physician that was tried for child rape (though acquitted) some years ago and finds National Socialism a good vehicle for his revenge on the Viennese society that shunned him after the trial
- mostly historical fiction and people looking for a mystery will be disappointed as there is no real such despite the talked about murders and the dog
- Vienna October-November 1939; the war has started, the Jews have been beaten and kicked out, though their murder is still only sporadic, the mentally sick and physically disabled are starting to be killed in hospitals for the good of the race, or at least this is what the characters believe (the actual killings started mostly in 1940, but rumors have been going around earlier), while forced sterilizations have been done for a while now
-integrity is rare, corruption and violence are common
- great interludes from the press of the times that read stranger than fiction
Excellent novel and highly recommended
October 13, 2015
Picked by my book club. This tale is set in 1939 Vienna where the country is under Nazi regime in World War II. The story opens with the killing of a dog. The dogs owner is a landlord of an apartment complex which inhabits a real mix of fascinating, intriguing characters many with secrets themselves.
Throw in to mix a few recent murders in the local area and now a police investigation is taking place at a time when people do not want to talk and a knock on the door is terrifying!. So, heightened tension is everywhere but who is the culprit? .
A very dark tale which I found quite confusing at times with the sub plots which probably was the main factor in me struggling to want to keep picking this book up. I did enjoy the characters and visualisation of scenes though.
I am glad to have read this author but will not continue with the series.
Throw in to mix a few recent murders in the local area and now a police investigation is taking place at a time when people do not want to talk and a knock on the door is terrifying!. So, heightened tension is everywhere but who is the culprit? .
A very dark tale which I found quite confusing at times with the sub plots which probably was the main factor in me struggling to want to keep picking this book up. I did enjoy the characters and visualisation of scenes though.
I am glad to have read this author but will not continue with the series.
April 8, 2015
Vienna 1939, after the Anschluss, is a place of suspicion with neighbors informing on neighbors and so-called average citizens slowly slipping down the slope of ethical behavior while feeling as though they have no choice. This is the Vienna of The Quite Twin as studied in microcosm through the residents of an apartment building; all of whom have windows peering out onto a central courtyard giving each one a partial view into the lives of others. The cast of engaging characters includes an aging Habsburg era monarchist who may or may not have committed rape, his housekeeper, a neurotic girl in her late teens, a doctor of psychiatry, a Japanese musician, a mime and his quadriplegic sister, a ten year old girl physically crippled in babyhood and various other assorted working class residents all of whom see, or believe that they see a murder-or maybe more than one murder. While the plot moves along at a good pace, the real point of the book is how people act in a totalitarian society; the choices they make when threatened, even if only in their imaginations.
So good I'll be opening the sequel, The Crooked Maid in 3..2..1..
So good I'll be opening the sequel, The Crooked Maid in 3..2..1..
January 22, 2012
...captures the paranoia endemic to society in Vienna..October 1939
What begins as an investigation into the killing of a neighbor's dog.....leads one Doctor Beer into the darker aspects of the lives of his neighbors. The diversity of social classes living in one apartment complex...surrounding a courtyard..
In this time and place...everyone had secrets..and would kill to keep them
Doctor Beer treats a young woman with sexual issues...a neighbor across the courtyard is caring for a "mentally defective" sister....the little girl, around the way...the humpbacked child...deals with an alcoholic father (and keeps a groundhog as a "pet")....and Doctor Beer has homosexual issues of his own....and the official, Nazi-endorsed "spy" is always On Duty
This is where I stop....if you're curious...seek out this book...it is a Wonder
4 1/2 Stars
***this was a Net Galley***
What begins as an investigation into the killing of a neighbor's dog.....leads one Doctor Beer into the darker aspects of the lives of his neighbors. The diversity of social classes living in one apartment complex...surrounding a courtyard..
In this time and place...everyone had secrets..and would kill to keep them
Doctor Beer treats a young woman with sexual issues...a neighbor across the courtyard is caring for a "mentally defective" sister....the little girl, around the way...the humpbacked child...deals with an alcoholic father (and keeps a groundhog as a "pet")....and Doctor Beer has homosexual issues of his own....and the official, Nazi-endorsed "spy" is always On Duty
This is where I stop....if you're curious...seek out this book...it is a Wonder
4 1/2 Stars
***this was a Net Galley***
February 18, 2012
This is a book that fell from nowhere and blew me out of the water.
It is 1939 in Vienna, and the residents of a large, rambling apartment building are uneasy. The professor's dog has been violently killed, and a number of other murders in the area seem to share the same hallmarks. Across the yard the professor's niece, the doctor, the janitor, the drunk's daughter, the trumpet player, and the clown all stare and wonder. Who is responsible? Who will be next?
When the police start nosing around, the tension mounts, and loyalties will not last long under the pressure.
More than a mystery, this book examines the atmosphere of suspicion in a country ruled by the Nazi party. How can anyone feel safe when the people in charge are known to be wolves in military uniforms?
It is 1939 in Vienna, and the residents of a large, rambling apartment building are uneasy. The professor's dog has been violently killed, and a number of other murders in the area seem to share the same hallmarks. Across the yard the professor's niece, the doctor, the janitor, the drunk's daughter, the trumpet player, and the clown all stare and wonder. Who is responsible? Who will be next?
When the police start nosing around, the tension mounts, and loyalties will not last long under the pressure.
More than a mystery, this book examines the atmosphere of suspicion in a country ruled by the Nazi party. How can anyone feel safe when the people in charge are known to be wolves in military uniforms?
March 5, 2012
This is a book that fell from nowhere and blew me out of the water.
It's 1939 in Vienna, and the residents of a large, rambling apartment building are uneasy. The professor's dog has been violently killed, and a number of murders in the area seem to share the same hallmarks. Across the yard the professor's niece, the doctor, the janitor, the drunk's daughter, the trumpet player, and the clown all stare and wonder. Who is responsible? Who will be next?
When the police start nosing around, the tension mounts, and loyalties will not last long under the pressure.
More than a mystery, this book examines the atmosphere of suspicion in a country ruled by the Nazi party. How can anyone feel safe when the people in charge are known to be wolves in military uniforms?
It's 1939 in Vienna, and the residents of a large, rambling apartment building are uneasy. The professor's dog has been violently killed, and a number of murders in the area seem to share the same hallmarks. Across the yard the professor's niece, the doctor, the janitor, the drunk's daughter, the trumpet player, and the clown all stare and wonder. Who is responsible? Who will be next?
When the police start nosing around, the tension mounts, and loyalties will not last long under the pressure.
More than a mystery, this book examines the atmosphere of suspicion in a country ruled by the Nazi party. How can anyone feel safe when the people in charge are known to be wolves in military uniforms?
March 17, 2012
3.5 This is an extremely well written book set in Vienna in 1939. The plot and the murders actually seem more of a background to the paranoia that surrounded those who felt they had something to fear from Hitler and his SS. A time when a knock on the door was a frightening event, and the people inhabiting an apartment building surrounding a courtyard, find much to occupy themselves with by spying on the others living in the complex. Small nuances take on a sinister tone when a dog is killed and four women are found dead. It seems that everyone has something to hide in this darkly complex novel.
January 2, 2018
I expected (and wanted) to like this book much more than I did. I just found it a wee bit dull and didn't really care about most of the characters apart from the kid and the hedgehog.
July 11, 2012
I found this book to be simultaneously fascinating and repellent. The murdered dog, and the murdered women. The mime and his paralyzed, mute twin sister - I hate mimes. The precocious hunchbacked 10 year old and her drunken, abusive, later murdered father. The neurasthenic college student and her disgraced sex offender Nazi uncle. The ineffectual doctor and the brutal cop - don't read this book expecting to like anyone. The nasty soup that resulted from the overlaying of Freudianism, spiritualism, eugenics and Nazism infuses every page.
From The Independent February 2011
"Vienna, autumn 1939: Dr Anton Beer, a medic whose formal training embraces the deviant Jewish thinking of the banned Sigmund Freud, holds a general surgery in his apartment on the upper floor of a suburban tenement.
A needy patient in the same block is Zuzka, the niece of Professor Speckstein, who has been sent to the city to recover from an unspecified nervous condition. Beer considers her a hysteric, a sham, but dutiful house calls gradually draw him into the Speckstein household.
Disgraced after a rape trial but clinging to social power as a Nazi Party neighbourhood informer, Professor Speckstein coerces Beer into reviewing the evidence of a string of local murders – including the butchering of his own aged hound. Zuzka, audacious through boredom, on the cusp of womanhood (or in need of, as Speckstein's housekeeper tartly observes, a husband), uses her despised uncle's authority to pursue her own inquiries into the miserable fate of the family dog.
From her uncle's apartment, at the affluent front of the block, Zuzka can peer into the windows of their neighbours in the two wings that overlook the shared courtyard, and what is observed serves as an ingenious driver to Dan Vyleta's plot. The novel opens at a slow, wary pace that reflects the guarded private lives of the apartment block's diverse inhabitants, all variously braced against the threat of notice by hostile authorities. But Zuzka's reckless sorties into uncharted emotional territory, Beer's reluctant probing, and an increasingly heavy police involvement steadily accelerate the pace of The Quiet Twin towards a denouement catalysed by a dinner party that Speckstein plans for the local Nazi top brass.
Vital, deftly realised characters populate Vyleta's simmering narrative. Most pungent is Teuben, the boorish, unprincipled police detective whose swaggering, presumptive authority holds all the arbitrary menace of Austria's eager pliancy to the Führer.
The gathering intensity of Vyleta's tentacular plot allows the loosest of assonances with Hamlet. Zuzka's seamy, mime-artist neighbour is roped into performing at the Professor's ghastly soirée which, Zuzka vainly hopes, will expose her uncle's guilty conscience. On an increasingly corpse-strewn stage, Beer dithers over his own courage and duty. More in tone than action, the malaise of the Nazi eugenics programme provides the rancid atmosphere of a rotten state.
Darker in tone than the ludic Pavel & I, Vyleta's debut, The Quiet Twin is a sharp and confident novel that captures the social paranoia and mistrust fomented by Nazism. At the novel's outset, startled by a doorbell, Dr Beer "jumped and feared arrest, irrationally" – an adverb that speaks of the timid doctor steadying his nerves with logic against the insidious but explicit criminalisation of the times.
Regardless of whodunit, Vyleta's subtly engaging thriller is tense with violent acts that are, perhaps above all else, a manifestation of the era's anxieties."
From The Independent February 2011
"Vienna, autumn 1939: Dr Anton Beer, a medic whose formal training embraces the deviant Jewish thinking of the banned Sigmund Freud, holds a general surgery in his apartment on the upper floor of a suburban tenement.
A needy patient in the same block is Zuzka, the niece of Professor Speckstein, who has been sent to the city to recover from an unspecified nervous condition. Beer considers her a hysteric, a sham, but dutiful house calls gradually draw him into the Speckstein household.
Disgraced after a rape trial but clinging to social power as a Nazi Party neighbourhood informer, Professor Speckstein coerces Beer into reviewing the evidence of a string of local murders – including the butchering of his own aged hound. Zuzka, audacious through boredom, on the cusp of womanhood (or in need of, as Speckstein's housekeeper tartly observes, a husband), uses her despised uncle's authority to pursue her own inquiries into the miserable fate of the family dog.
From her uncle's apartment, at the affluent front of the block, Zuzka can peer into the windows of their neighbours in the two wings that overlook the shared courtyard, and what is observed serves as an ingenious driver to Dan Vyleta's plot. The novel opens at a slow, wary pace that reflects the guarded private lives of the apartment block's diverse inhabitants, all variously braced against the threat of notice by hostile authorities. But Zuzka's reckless sorties into uncharted emotional territory, Beer's reluctant probing, and an increasingly heavy police involvement steadily accelerate the pace of The Quiet Twin towards a denouement catalysed by a dinner party that Speckstein plans for the local Nazi top brass.
Vital, deftly realised characters populate Vyleta's simmering narrative. Most pungent is Teuben, the boorish, unprincipled police detective whose swaggering, presumptive authority holds all the arbitrary menace of Austria's eager pliancy to the Führer.
The gathering intensity of Vyleta's tentacular plot allows the loosest of assonances with Hamlet. Zuzka's seamy, mime-artist neighbour is roped into performing at the Professor's ghastly soirée which, Zuzka vainly hopes, will expose her uncle's guilty conscience. On an increasingly corpse-strewn stage, Beer dithers over his own courage and duty. More in tone than action, the malaise of the Nazi eugenics programme provides the rancid atmosphere of a rotten state.
Darker in tone than the ludic Pavel & I, Vyleta's debut, The Quiet Twin is a sharp and confident novel that captures the social paranoia and mistrust fomented by Nazism. At the novel's outset, startled by a doorbell, Dr Beer "jumped and feared arrest, irrationally" – an adverb that speaks of the timid doctor steadying his nerves with logic against the insidious but explicit criminalisation of the times.
Regardless of whodunit, Vyleta's subtly engaging thriller is tense with violent acts that are, perhaps above all else, a manifestation of the era's anxieties."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 15, 2014
This story takes place in 1939 Vienna, under the Nazi regime, and involves a cast of characters some of whom will appear in his later postwar novel "The crooked Maid" which I read 1st. There is the same "noir movie" atmosphere-brooding, threatening, and filled with violence, murder, corruption, drunkenness, in the shadow-filled setting of a somewhat dingy section of Vienna. We are introduced to Dr. Anton Beer-psychiatrist doing general practice, Lieschen the little girl with spinal deformity(the crooked maid of the later novel) whom he will protect & adopt after her drunken father dies in an apparent suicide, or was it murder?, shortly on the heels of two women being murdered & the pet dog of Dr.Speckstein, a disgraced professor(though exonerated in court of the rape of a little girl)now working as a Nazi informer. His niece Szuska suffers hysterical symptoms, while his housekeeper Frau Vesalius runs the household with grim&unhappy efficiency. The mysterious trumpet playing Japanese Herr Yuu, and the cabaret mime Otto who secretly harbors his twin sister Eva who is paralyzed & bedridden(to protect her from the Nazi eugenics program me). Investigating the dog killing & subsequently other violent events is the opportunistic sadistic Nazi detective who will ultimately invite his Nazi police cronies to a drunken destructive party at Dr.Speckstein(without consultation)& will be killed by Otto when he is caught raping Eva. Anton is recruited to help Otto but seen by Yuu & denounced to Speckstein who dies of a stroke before reporting him. Otto is bribed by Anton to escape to Switzerland with Lieschen where the little girl can be put up by Anton's wife(who left him previously over a gay relation he had). However Otto is denounced by a farmer & caught, and Lieschen ends up in an orphanage. This is all about the hell of Nazism & the dual nature of man-capable of good & evil.
June 12, 2016
The book follows the lives of several people living in an apartment block in Vienna. The wealthier residents have grander apartments facing the street, the poorer ones live in smaller places around a courtyard behind the facade. This means the lives of all social classes and wealth levels are intertwined and is an arrangement not found in most cities (which tend to segregate more).
The time is 1939, a year after the Anschluss, and the Nazis are in power. There is a climate of mutual suspicion, not helped by several murders in the area and the killing of a resident's dog. Many of the residents have secrets behind their own facades. Almost all of them would fail some aspect of the Nazi purity tests (although not by being Jewish unusually) and rumours of what would happen to them add to the atmosphere.
Many characters make choices in this situation which are morally suspect to some extent, and we readers are left wondering what we would do. There is only one thoroughly unpleasant character (a Nazi, obviously) but there are no truly good ones and everyone finds their own compromises.
I had a small problem with so many characters having a physical or mental handicap, or a 'sexual deviancy' and I'm not sure an author should write a book set under the Nazi regime without addressing the Jewish question (the only ones mentioned have left and their premises burnt, but that is it). It is a very good book however and I enjoyed reading it.
The time is 1939, a year after the Anschluss, and the Nazis are in power. There is a climate of mutual suspicion, not helped by several murders in the area and the killing of a resident's dog. Many of the residents have secrets behind their own facades. Almost all of them would fail some aspect of the Nazi purity tests (although not by being Jewish unusually) and rumours of what would happen to them add to the atmosphere.
Many characters make choices in this situation which are morally suspect to some extent, and we readers are left wondering what we would do. There is only one thoroughly unpleasant character (a Nazi, obviously) but there are no truly good ones and everyone finds their own compromises.
I had a small problem with so many characters having a physical or mental handicap, or a 'sexual deviancy' and I'm not sure an author should write a book set under the Nazi regime without addressing the Jewish question (the only ones mentioned have left and their premises burnt, but that is it). It is a very good book however and I enjoyed reading it.
May 3, 2012
The Quiet Twin is set in an apartment complex in Vienna in 1939, early in World War II. A series of bizarre murders have occured in the city. When a dog belonging to the building's owner is found dead, he asks a resident physician to investigate. He is aided by the landlord's niece, whose curiosity and budding sexuality seem destined to get her into trouble; also by a hunchbacked little girl with remarkable gifts of perception.
The characters' habit of watching one another across the courtyard of the complex is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1954 thriller, Rear Window. This macabre tale refers only tangentially to the plight of Jews, concentrating instead on conflicts between rich and poor, Party members and those who did not subscribe to Hitler's politics.
Dan Vyleta's characters are more fascinating than sympathetic. He gets full marks for portrying people the way they are, rather than how we would like them to be. The people in this novel are marvels of eccentricity struggling to survive in an increasingly oppressive atmosphere.
Actions scenes are described less deftly. Vyleta seems to get tangled in language. Some behaviours defy credibility. Another serious problem: too many subplots receive careful, suspenseful treatment only to find perfunctory resolutions.
The characters' habit of watching one another across the courtyard of the complex is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1954 thriller, Rear Window. This macabre tale refers only tangentially to the plight of Jews, concentrating instead on conflicts between rich and poor, Party members and those who did not subscribe to Hitler's politics.
Dan Vyleta's characters are more fascinating than sympathetic. He gets full marks for portrying people the way they are, rather than how we would like them to be. The people in this novel are marvels of eccentricity struggling to survive in an increasingly oppressive atmosphere.
Actions scenes are described less deftly. Vyleta seems to get tangled in language. Some behaviours defy credibility. Another serious problem: too many subplots receive careful, suspenseful treatment only to find perfunctory resolutions.
January 22, 2016
Vienna, 1939. Professor Speckstein's dog has been brutally killed and he wants to know why. But these are uncharitable times and one must be careful where one probes...When an unexpected house call leads Doctor Beer to Speckstein's apartment, he finds himself in the bedroom of Zuzka, the professor's niece. Wide-eyed, flirtatious, and not detectably ill, Zuzka leads the young doctor to her window and opens up a view of their apartment block that Beer has never known. Across the shared courtyard there is nine-year-old Anneliese, the lonely daughter of an alcoholic. Five windows to the left lives a secretive mime who comes home late at night and keeps something - or someone - precious hidden from view. From the garret drifts the mournful sound of an Oriental's trumpet, and a basement door swings closed behind the building's inscrutable janitor. Does one of these enigmatic neighbours have blood on their hands? Doctor Beer, who has his own reasons for keeping his private life hidden from public scrutiny, reluctantly becomes embroiled in an enquiry that forces him to face the dark realities of Nazi rule. (Amazon review) - Read it all but didn't enjoy the noir-ish quality. None of the characters are lilkable - but the setting was interesting
November 27, 2012
Finishing the book and reflecting on the content: What did I just read?
I'm not looking at this book in a bad way, it definitely wasn't dull and flat but rather it was interesting. There were many intriguing characters but do not expect to like them. Like all mysteries, the characters reveal more about themselves with little events and details occurring throughout the novel. I know I must be stating the obvious here but I suppose I never became aware of that until this book. The thing is, though, some of the secrets behind each character picks at my brain a little bit because some have no relation with other characters. Well, who am I kidding. There are minor details that may relate but it's nothing significant. This macabre book is truly something. I think what keeps me from setting this book down is the characters. All seemingly normal people with jobs to get through the day but the most unusual events can stir the dark secrets they possess to the surface. It's really... interesting. I have no feelings brought from this book for me to type in this review to justify my rating, really.
I'm not looking at this book in a bad way, it definitely wasn't dull and flat but rather it was interesting. There were many intriguing characters but do not expect to like them. Like all mysteries, the characters reveal more about themselves with little events and details occurring throughout the novel. I know I must be stating the obvious here but I suppose I never became aware of that until this book. The thing is, though, some of the secrets behind each character picks at my brain a little bit because some have no relation with other characters. Well, who am I kidding. There are minor details that may relate but it's nothing significant. This macabre book is truly something. I think what keeps me from setting this book down is the characters. All seemingly normal people with jobs to get through the day but the most unusual events can stir the dark secrets they possess to the surface. It's really... interesting. I have no feelings brought from this book for me to type in this review to justify my rating, really.
May 23, 2015
Lu en français: Fenêtres sur la nuit
3.5/5
Que dire, sinon que je l'ai encore sur l'estomac, celui-là. C'est un huis clos dans un complexe d'habitations, secoué par des meurtres horribles. C'est Anton Beer, médecin spécialisé en psychiatrie, qui se trouve au coeur des secrets des habitants du complexe. Ce sont des portes qui s'ouvrent, qui claquent, qui se ferment sur les secrets des uns et des autres. Ce sont des fenêtres qui laissent entrevoir une parcelle de vérité ou le reflet des désirs. Dans une ambiance étouffante et sordide, on suit des personnages complexes, animés ou plombés par leurs désirs, mus par l'instinct de survie ou le besoin de savoir. Il y a aussi les personnages qui ne parlent pas, et qui exercent une influence immense sur les autres. Le modèle freudien est omniprésent: les incarnations de l'ego, du ça et du surmoi se baladent sur deux jambes. Les vingt dernières pages sont implacables.
Pourrait plaire aux amateurs de cinéma, les vrais de vrais, qui aiment le cinéma expressionniste allemand pour les images que l'auteur réussit à faire naître (je pense entre autres à l'apparition de Otto le mime). On baigne dans un cauchemar en noir et blanc.
3.5/5
Que dire, sinon que je l'ai encore sur l'estomac, celui-là. C'est un huis clos dans un complexe d'habitations, secoué par des meurtres horribles. C'est Anton Beer, médecin spécialisé en psychiatrie, qui se trouve au coeur des secrets des habitants du complexe. Ce sont des portes qui s'ouvrent, qui claquent, qui se ferment sur les secrets des uns et des autres. Ce sont des fenêtres qui laissent entrevoir une parcelle de vérité ou le reflet des désirs. Dans une ambiance étouffante et sordide, on suit des personnages complexes, animés ou plombés par leurs désirs, mus par l'instinct de survie ou le besoin de savoir. Il y a aussi les personnages qui ne parlent pas, et qui exercent une influence immense sur les autres. Le modèle freudien est omniprésent: les incarnations de l'ego, du ça et du surmoi se baladent sur deux jambes. Les vingt dernières pages sont implacables.
Pourrait plaire aux amateurs de cinéma, les vrais de vrais, qui aiment le cinéma expressionniste allemand pour les images que l'auteur réussit à faire naître (je pense entre autres à l'apparition de Otto le mime). On baigne dans un cauchemar en noir et blanc.
April 9, 2012
I first heard of this book while listening to the BBC Radio 4 programme "A Good Read." The panelist who picked The Quiet Twin said something to the effect that he couldn't put the book down once he started it and he loved it so much that he promptly went out to be everything else Dan Vyleta has written (which unfortunately isn't a lot, yet). The other people on the show had exactly the same reaction, and now that I have read it, I know why. Set in Nazi-occupied Vienna, the novel concerns the occupants of an apartment block and a string of unsolved murders. I won't say much more about the plot than that, because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. I will just add the comment that Vyleta's decision to include short accounts of horrifying crimes that actually happened is tremendously effective and enhances the sense of foreboding that accompanies the reader from start to finish.
October 9, 2014
Reading the blurb about this book I didn't expect to like it but I was wrong. This is a novel set in Vienna in 1939, populated by unsympathetic characters who are all watching and being watched in turn, all with their own secrets and eccentricities. Add to this the fear and mistrust that living under Nazi rule begets and you have a novel which shudders with tension and misgivings. Some of the plot was hard to believe and some of it unpleasant to read but the sum total of its components was an excellent read which made me think, What would I do in a similar situation? Would I fight, flee or succumb? Definitely worth reading and I will be buying the second work by this author.
March 27, 2012
I used to love the dark, hard-to-get-into books when I was an English major in college, but now if I can't get into it in the first 100 pages, I'm done. Wisdom in old age? Not sure. But either way this one is going back to the library for someone else to tackle!
December 31, 2012
I read the first 155 pages trying, hoping to get into it but it's just not happening. Is it me? The book? Who knows. Life goes on.
June 25, 2015
Roman noir tout en nuances... Tout est dans l'ambiance qui se développe tout doucement . Un style unique . Belle découverte ...
December 23, 2016
I don't know what it was but I really struggled to read this book. It was a great premise but I never felt grabbed by the writing.
April 27, 2017
I lost the plot somewhere in some convoluted paragraph or other, which are good if you are in the mood.
March 31, 2018
I found this book to be dragging.
May 10, 2025
I had this book on audiobook is my online library and cannot really rate it.
It was jumpy, disjointed and did not make comfortable reading - some of the descriptions of the injured or the dead were downright revolting. Whilst that in itself isn’t a reason to dislike a book, I just thought it was gross - reading other peoples’ reviews , they name it ‘grotesque and macabre 🤷🏻♀️.’
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I couldn’t connect with any of the characters and had to keep going back to replay bits every time I stopped listening. Plot was also rather boring and couldn’t see it going anywhere. Got to about 52% and dumped it as thought life’s too short to be bothered listening to something that I considered a) not very good and b) utterly tedious and repetitive
It had been on my ‘to read’ list for a while and am now happy to remove it having almost done so. At least I didn’t pay for it
It was jumpy, disjointed and did not make comfortable reading - some of the descriptions of the injured or the dead were downright revolting. Whilst that in itself isn’t a reason to dislike a book, I just thought it was gross - reading other peoples’ reviews , they name it ‘grotesque and macabre 🤷🏻♀️.’
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I couldn’t connect with any of the characters and had to keep going back to replay bits every time I stopped listening. Plot was also rather boring and couldn’t see it going anywhere. Got to about 52% and dumped it as thought life’s too short to be bothered listening to something that I considered a) not very good and b) utterly tedious and repetitive
It had been on my ‘to read’ list for a while and am now happy to remove it having almost done so. At least I didn’t pay for it
April 11, 2018
Clever and entertaining in a very dark way.
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