MURDER INVESTIGATION COMMISSION: The Case of Teo Macamo (Vol. I)

A mutilated body is found next to train tracks near Jena. How did the young man from Mozambique die? First lieutenant Otto Castorp from the murder investigation commission in Gera looks for witnesses but is confronted with a wall of silence.The evidence, however, points to racist motives for the killing.

When it becomes clear that this line of inquiry can no longer be disregarded, the commission is ordered to drop the case: a racist murder is inconceivable in the German Democratic Republic. Otto Castorp begins his own covert search for the killer, under observation by the powers that be...

Based on a real case, Max Annas’ novel is an urgent, deeply political thriller with a relevance that goes far beyond the 1980s and the former East Germany.

"Annas has succeeded in writing a novel of enormous density that reads almost like a report and derives its fascination less from the case and the way it is solved than from the slow transformation of its main character - and the detailed, authentic descriptions of life in the former East Germany." Spiegel Online