With last summer’s sci-fier THE SWARM making a splash on both halves of the world, William Morrow now reissues German author Frank Schatzing’s earlier novel for the first time in English: the historical thriller DEATH AND THE DEVIL.
Set in Cologne, Germany, the novel is based upon a real-life event in 1260, when architect Gerhard Morart fell to his death from the Cologne cathedral he was building, once the largest structure in the world. Of course, a simple slip doesn’t make for great fiction, so in Schatzing’s world, the man was pushed.
Stunned villagers blame the master’s demise on Satan himself, but one-handed homeless beggar Jacob the Fox knows better. After all, he saw it all happen while swiping apples out of a tree. He saw Morart shoved purposely by the evil Urquhart, as part of a plan hatched by a seven-member secret society.
Unfortunately, Urquhart also saw Jacob, and so the former sets about eliminating the latter, shooting bolts from a crossbow into the heads of anyone who gets in his way. Giving Jacob aid – not to mention credibility – is scholar and physician Jaspar.
DEATH AND THE DEVIL is the kind of mystery where you know who immediately, but not the why. With dead whores and dripping lepers thrown into Schatzing’s mix, it reaches for a modern-day-friendly feel while also retaining the Gothic ambience of the cathedral pictured on its cover. And at less than half of THE SWARM’s spine-busting nearly-four-digit page count, it’s comparatively tidy.
And when it sticks to the action, it’s moderately absorbing, full of period detail and colorful characters. Too much religious politics, however, gets the plot off-track. The translation is problematic as well; one can tell it is one, as some sentences are rather basic and perfunctory. If you can get over that – or simply are an unabashed fan of history-based thrillers – put DEATH on your to-do list. –Rod Lott
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- The Devil’s Rejects
- The Devil’s Halo
