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(no English version so far!)
The sky hangs low, it looks like it needs to lie down immediately. Fog rises from the Elbe, tough and mean like an old crow. I flip up my coat collar, but it’s useless: the dampness creeps into my bones. My head hurts, I haven’t slept enough. It’s early March, it’s only half past seven, and there’s a dead girl at my feet. …
She is naked, a serious strangulation mark stretches across her neck. Her breasts aren’t the most elegant money can buy, but they’re pretty impressive. I wonder why she was laid there so nicely and not floating face down in the Elbe like all the other dead people. She wears a cheap, light blue, short-haired wig.
I could do with a cup of coffee. …
“Okay,” I say. “Anything else?”
“Oh, yes,” he says, lifting the wig a tiny bit.
There’s no hair or skin under the wig. There’s just a crusty, bloody mass. I feel dizzy on the spot.
from: Revolverherz
A Driven Character
Chastity Riley is in her 40s and single. Love is her big problem. Her father loved her mother without limits – and when his wife left him with a toddler, he was broken for the rest of his life. He put an end to his life himself some twenty years later.
Chastity has witnessed this unending pain of her father all these years as she grew up. She was devastated when she found her father’s body. Love was the most difficult thing in the world for her, even more so after that event. Keeping distance has become the most natural thing in the world for her.
Of course there is a man -or another – she is attracted to, but it is never enough for a real life together i. e. a real, lasting relationship. She lacks courage, she is afraid. That’s why she prefers one-night stands or casual relationships without taking the next step. She puts a lot of effort into this.
Chastity has become a public prosecutor and deals with the really dirty crimes that exist in Hamburg. These cases all end up on her desk. That always makes for a lot of work. It never looks like there is much glory to be earned in handling and solving them, but Chastity digs through every pile of dirt, always hoping that the perpetrator can be punished and that the innocent don’t have to suffer any more than absolutely necessary. She is always on that path of justice and never lets up.
That doesn’t always go well. Sometimes Chastity stirs up a little too much dirt and established personalities get nervous – or even interrogated, not to mention impeached. Then it can happen that Chastity is transferred at short notice. But soon she is back in her element …
Chastity talks about herself and her cases in the novels. She does it in a very idiosyncratic language, sometimes rude, sometimes crass and cruel, but it fits her life and her work. (The language alone makes the novels worth reading).
The focus is on herself and her feelings. The cases are almost secondary. Hence, it also happens that cases remain unsolved or at least do not reach a status that allows for charges to be brought. Chastity alone has the perspective and knows – or at least suspects – the truth. She knows she has to make do, but she can’t really let go.
The criminal police have a split relationship with Chastity. There are investigators who love her, idolise her, want to work with her again and again and give her deep insights into the current situation – and there are others who prefer to keep their distance. Chastity mostly doesn’t care, because she does what she wants anyway – and drives the police before her from time to time.
Chastity is a fan of St. Pauli, the local football club, and lives in this area of Hamburg, not exactly a posh area. She loves all these losers she meets, who she can drink with. Alcohol is Chastity’s best friend. She has her regular pubs and everyone knows that she likes to drink more than is good for her. Her friends in the police force know this too, but they like to drink with her until they are all practically under the table.
Basically, Chastity has a lot of friends, even if she is always alone in her flat and wants to stay that way. Maybe it’s easier when she wakes up in the morning with a headache and nausea because she drank too much last night. Usually the phone rings when she drags herself into the kitchen … to call her to a crime scene. That is her starting signal …