Tony R Cox is an ex-provincial UK journalist. The Simon Jardine series is based on his memories of the early 70s - the time of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll - when reporters relied on word of mouth and there was no internet, no mobile phones, not even a fax machine.
Ubbo Heide is a retired senior policeman living out his retirement in his native northern Germany when he receives a human head. Then a headless corpse is discovered; however, the two are unconnected, literally and biologically. Heide is still called ‘The Boss’, and that, along with an impressive case history, is always going to raise tensions in his old police force. It’s not helped by a new head of police and a flurry of officers who are carrying on as if there’d been no change from the ‘old guard’.
Our hero is Chief Inspector Ann Kathrin Klaasen, who brings method and systematic drive to the inquiry (as opposed to the wayward detective work of some of her colleagues). Add the intrusive sniffing around, of a journalist who’s looking to bring Klaasen down, and you have an intriguing backdrop for this police procedural.
Someone has kidnapped a woman and locked them in a cage, perhaps to die. More bodies are found and the murders happen thick and fast. The frustrated police might benefit from looking amongst their own ranks for the mass murderer,
Klaus-Peter Wolf is a multi-novel successful author who also writes scripts and directs films. His script writing abilities are clearly demonstrated in The Oath, where most actions are described in minute detail to avoid the reader having to think. That includes food and sexual proclivities.
There is a precision and clarity to the author’s writing which probably works well in his native German. In the abbreviation and nuances of English, with its demands for the reader to imagine scenarios and avoid actions and descriptions not linked directly to the plot, it can feel stilted, and times verbose. Each word in the original German seems to have been changed into its English equivalent: this is not the same as translating the book as a work of literature. The German idioms and rigid structure tend jar on the readers, for whom the sparking of their own imagination is more invigorating and satisfying than having every detail laid out in black and white.
The plot and storyline survive, but perhaps 500 pages could have been English-edited, rather than translated, into not far off half that.
