Blackout, Scarrow - B

            Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke is in charge of the 12 man Kripo unit at the Pankow precinct in Berlin in the freezing December of 1939. His politics are marked by ambivalence. He is called in by the head of the Gestapo to handle what he characterizes as a "delicate matter." The wife of a high party official has been murdered and the matter must be handled with finesse. Subtlety, however, is not the name of the game because the murderer is a serial killer. Schenke manages to fight through the interference of the Gestapo and the Abwehr, while holding to his values as an apolitical investigator. This a good historical fiction/police procedural, one that ably discusses the challenge of enforcing the law in a country ruled by criminals.