Sunday 13 March 2011

"A Time For Scandal" by H.H. Kirst

This is becoming a familiar litany, but this book seems to have been out of print, at least in English translation, for many years. I finally got hold of all three of the trilogy (of which this is the first) second hand on the Internet.

Kirst is probably best known as the author of Night of the Generals, which was of courses made into an international film. but within Germany he is celebrated as the creator of Gunner Asch, who features in a series of humorous army tales.

A Time for Scandal is a murder mystery set within a rich and powerful industrial family riven by all the usual tensions: father hates son-in-law, daughter hates mother, mother hates father, etc. Initially a matter of mistaken identity, it soon becomes that much more is at work here.

It does read very much for what it is - a 1970's thriller - both because of its style and because of its background (the 1971 Munich Olympics), but is none the worse for that. Do give it a try should you come across it in a second hand book shop.

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