Nights in Berlin

A young Irishman finds love and danger in the shadows of Weimar Berlin

Francis Bacon has never cared much for country living, so he is overjoyed when his father sends him to Berlin as punishment for his not-so-innocent flirtations with the other boys at school. With afternoons at the cinema, dinner at the Hotel Adlon, and nights at the most outrageous cabarets in Germany—and in his uncle Lastings’s bed—he’ll fit right in.

The Great War having ended over a decade ago, and its resulting economic turmoil in the past, Germany is enjoying the “Golden Twenties”—a time of healthy fiscal growth, and creative and sexual resurgence, centered in Berlin. Yet dark clouds are gathering as Hitler consolidates power within the Nazi Party and brownshirts march through the streets.

As tensions rise, Francis finds his uncle Lastings busy welcoming countless men into his hotel room—some invited for pleasure, others to be recruited for the fight against Bolshevism. Lastings seems particularly excited by an upstart National Socialist, some mustachioed fellow from Bavaria named . . . well, Francis doesn’t care about the details. But when the Nazis send Lastings fleeing for his life, Francis is left alone, penniless, and hunted, with only his keen sense of hedonism to distract him from a city that gets more menacing every night.

Nights in Berlin is the 4th book in the Francis Bacon Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Janice Law (b. 1941) is an acclaimed author of mystery fiction. The Watergate scandal inspired her to write her first novel,The Big Payoff, which introduced Anna Peters, a street-smart young woman who blackmails her boss, a corrupt oil executive. The novel was a success, winning an Edgar nomination, and Law went on to write eight more in the series, includingDeath Under Par and Cross-Check. Law has written historical mysteries, standalone suspense, and, most recently, the Francis Bacon Mysteries, which includeThe Prisoner of the Riviera, winner of the 2013 Lambda Literary Gay Mystery Award. She lives and writes in Connecticut.