Thomas Herzsprung is an author I came across on TikTok. I started following him without having read any of his books mostly because of his personality, but I kept looking for his books in the bookstores. I knew he wrote psycho thrillers and since I’m a huge fan of Sebastian Fitzek and the like, I wanted to give him a chance. Yet, I never found a single book of his in the bookstore and since I usually found something else to take home with me instead, I never thought of ordering a book.
Now I recently discovered that as an Amazon Prime member I have access to a selection of free e-books and luckily, his book „Der Behandler“ was available for free, so I decided to give it a try.
The plot
The young Indian / Pakistani girl Ashwa Jha is thrown into a well by her classmates. After being ridiculed and insulted, she disappears. Days later, Ashwa’s corpse is found close to a lake in the forest. Her body was mutilated and tormented in the worst possible way. Inspector Falk Bachmann and the psychologist Dr Juliane Klawitter are in charge of the case – and it gets very personal when Bachmann discovers the bracelet of his own daughter Mia at the crime scene, right next to the victim. Mia was a class mate of the victim – and it remains unclear if she’s involved in the case, or in potential danger of becoming one of the next victims, as it soon turns out that the crime was committed by a serial killer.
While Bachmann has to fight his own past and deal with his family issues, he also has to solve a case that is directly related to his own daughter – and is connected to the New right movement.
… I’m not gonna lie, the plot is a roller coaster ride and there were so many plot twists that it almost drove me insane. At some point I had the feeling that the case was almost solved and then I had a look at the remaining pages and was like „But there’s still so much book left???“ I was seriously confused. That’s great though because I personally didn’t see the final outcome coming. For me personally, the solution was a big surprise and I was very relieved about that. Thomas Herzsprung knows how to lead his readers onto the wrong path and make you think that the outcome will be a very stereotypical ending. Only that … I personally think it wasn’t.
The characters
The protagonists of the book are chief inspector Falk Bachmann, his colleague Dr Juliane Klawitter (a psychologist working for the police), Bachmann’s new partner Jan Hartwick and, more or less, Bachmann’s daughter Mia as well as his love interest Zoe, who works as a nurse in a sort of retirement home. And while the characters are mostly sympathetic and relatable, I personally thought that some of them were a bit too stereotypical. There were bits and pieces I truly didn’t like about the characterisation of not only the protagonists, but also some of the side characters.
For me, that already started with Bachmann being the typical Chief inspector with always a bad mood, a problem with alcoholism and a difficult family background. The way he reacted to one of his former colleagues being in charge of the case when he arrived at the crime scene made me roll my eyes because the entire phrasing of his reaction was so stereotypical. Same with his reaction on his new partner Jan Hartwick, who’s young, dynamic, handsome and was a very good student. Bachmann’s daughter and his love interest Zoe were also a tad too stereotypical for me. It’s difficult to explain without any spoilers, so I’ll hide more details and if you’re interested or if you’ve read the book before, you can read on.
My personal opinion on the characters
I’ve already explained that Bachmann’s moodiness and his family background were sort of a stereotype for me. Of course he’s divorced, of course he’s an alcoholic, of course he’s somehow jealous of a young, good-looking colleague that might outshine him. In some situations, he’s sort of a loner and he’s stubborn and makes his own decisions. It’s nothing we’ve never seen in any inspector of any crime book or thriller I guess. He has a very bad relationship with his father and is basically waiting for him to die while at the same time waiting for his father to reveal the family secret – a situation which eventually makes him encounter his future love interest Zoe, who is significantly younger than him, but has a strong father complex.
Dr Juliane Klawitter is generally sympathetic, but it’s like a woman can only be sympathetic and not e.g. handsome or self-confident at the same time. So she’s presented as dissatisfied with her looks up to a point where I felt like there were slight tendencies of fatshaming in the book. And of course she’s driving an old car that is close to falling apart. Like … sorry, but this is yet another thing I’ve read way too many times in crime books?
Also very stereotypical: Bachmann’s daughter is presented as some kind of alternative girl with blue strands in her hair, wearing DocMartens and basically being a light version of a punk. So is Bachmann’s love interest by the way and I am still not sure if I should find it concerning that Bachmann is interested in a woman that looks so much like his own daughter that, towards the end of the book, Zoe is kidnapped because the murderer mistook her for Mia. A woman with a father complex? Okay. But a man falling for a woman that looks like his daughter? I was a little worried. But coming back to Mia: of course the light punk is in love with … … … a Nazi. And she doesn’t notice. And she’s naive enough not to notice that he’s been using and manipulating her all the time.
Other than that … I generally liked the book. The story was interesting and fascinating and as I said, there were so many plot twists that each time you thought you figured it out, something else happened and it turned out that nope, nothing’s the way you expected it to be. That kept dragging me on. I generally like Thomas Herzsprung’s style, it was easy to read and appealing to me and my back then very sick brain (I read the book when I had a very bad cold and was down with a fever).
Although I had my issues with the characters, I generally liked the book and I am sure I’ll read more books by Thomas Herzsprung. I can highly recommend this book to any fans of good psycho thrillers. At least as long as you can handle a few graphic descriptions of mutilations.
Oh, also, on a side note: Gay main character, yay!