Goldstein, Kutscher - B +

             In the third novel in this series, Brooklyn gangster Abe Goldstein arrives in Berlin in the summer of 1931. Rath is told to keep an eye on him. A parallel story involves two teenage street kids caught by the Prussian Police in Berlin's finest department store after midnight. Alex escapes, but from the street she watches as an officer sends Benny six stories to his death. She reports that Benny was murdered, and since the policeman has a record of violent outbursts, the matter is taken seriously. Alex disappears into the streets again, but the relentless Charly Ritter finds her.

           Although Goldstein is in Berlin for family reasons, all assume he is in the middle of an outbreak of gang violence. He is not, but he does help an old Jew being harassed by the SA. One of the Nazis, who is likely gay, winds up dead later in the night. And since Goldstein has been seen in their vicinity, he has a problem.  Once the police connect him to the Nazis, they begin looking for him, and they later suspect him of helping his dying grandfather off to the afterlife.  Rath, however, is certain that Goldstein did not kill the Nazi.

            While the police are following the cop who killed Benny, he is murdered, and they learn that he was another homosexual in the SA. It also appears as if his killer was in a police uniform. When finally uncovered, the police find that these murders, and quite a few others in the gang world, were committed by the White Hand, a conspiracy of right-wing police and judiciary personnel trying to save Germany from the liberalism of the Weimar Republic.  Of course, the ultimate irony is that Goldstein helps the police and is free to return to the US.  A totally brilliant police novel, once again with limited exposition of the politics of the era and very little in common with the Netflix series.