Short Synopsis
When an executive at the renowned Ufa film studios is found dead, it falls to Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner of the Kriminalpolizei to investigate, in this spellbinding novel by the author of Rosa.

Full Synopsis
Berlin, between the two world wars. When an executive at the renowned Ufa film studios is found dead floating in his office bathtub, it falls to Nikolai Hoffner, a chief inspector in the Kriminalpolizei, to investigate. With the help of Fritz Lang (the German director) and Alby Pimm (leader of the most powerful crime syndicate in Berlin), Hoffner finds his case taking him beyond the world of film and into the far more treacherous landscape of Berlin's sex and drug trade, the rise of Hitler's Brownshirts (the SA), and the even more astonishing attempts by onetime monarchists to rearm a post-Versailles Germany. Being swept up in the case are Hoffner's new lover, an American talent agent for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and his two sons: Georg, who has dropped out of school to work at Ufa, and Sascha, his angry, older son, who, unknown to his father, has become fully entrenched in the new German Workers Party as the aide to its Berlin leader, Joseph Goebbels.

Shadow and Light is brilliant and atmospheric, and hard to put down or shake off. Like Joseph Kanon or Alan Furst, Rabb magically fuses a smart, energetic narrative with layers of fascinating, vividly documented history. The result is a stunning historical thriller, created by a writer to celebrate—and contend with.

"Viciously imaginative, chillingly plausible, Rabb's novel re-awakens Berlin in the 1920s." ---Jason Goodwin, author of The Bellini Card

"There's a persistent mournfulness in Simon Prebble's reading.... The dolefulness is richly appropriate." ---AudioFile

"Rabb's meticulous research brings to life a corrupt society vulnerable to extremism." ---Publishers Weekly Starred Review

"Rabb has a gift for capturing the intoxicating---and toxic---atmosphere of post-World War I Berlin." ---The New York Times

"I was absolutely mesmerized by your reading. You managed to find every nuance I had hoped to put on the page, and some I didn't even know existed.... Many, many thanks." ---Jonathan Rabb, from an e-mail to narrator Simon Prebble

"[A] brilliantly plotted narrative." ---The Washington Post

"A first-rate historical novel and a singularly artful crime noir.... Enthusiastically recommended." ---Library Journal Starred Review

"Darkly gripping, intellectually sophisticated.... An ambitious historical mystery novel that beautifully blends escapist adventure with a surprisingly compelling underpinning of spiritual and moral ambiguity." ---The Boston Globe

Publishers Weekly Review

Library Journal Review