A Summer of Murder

Winner of the German Crime Fiction Award

In this second Black Forest Investigation, Chief Inspector Louise Boni returns from rehab at a Buddhist monastery after the events of the award-winning Zen and the Art of Murder.With a shaky grasp on her newfound sobriety, Boni resumes work with the criminal investigation department. Her first assignment, the probe of a fireman's death while battling the explosion of a secret underground weapons cache, reveals connections to both neo-Nazis and illegal arms dealers from the former Yugoslavia. But the sudden incursion of secret service agents into the scene indicates more far-reaching possibilities. Boni must come to grips with the dark forces behind the hidden munitions, the divided loyalties of a new partner, and the ghosts of her own past while trying to resolve the most challenging case of her career.

"Its plot bristles with invention." — Barry Forshaw, Guardian

"Oliver Bottini is a terrific storyteller and he evokes his setting — the Rhine borderlands of the Black Forest — with skill." — Jake Kerridge, Sunday Express

"A Summer of Murder has a plot as surprising as the earlier novel . . . taut writing and pacy events." — Joan Smith, Sunday Times

"An atmospheric, original story that will keep you hooked to the final heart-rending revelations." — Crime Review

"Oliver Bottini, one of the few German authors who play in crime-writing's premier league, really knows how to tell a good story." — Frankfurter Rundschau
 
"Tension without brutality, local colour without small-minded sentimentality, good, intelligent reading with depth." — Handelsblatt
 
"It's been a long time since any crime author started out so strongly, so visually." — Die Zeit