In Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg’s so-called ‘problem area’, an American couple is found brutally murdered in a derelict villa.
Prosecutor Chastity Riley is assigned the case, and quickly finds herself waist-deep in a murky tangle of city planners, shady investors and vanishing officials. The gentrification machine is rolling on, and someone is sending a very clear message.
As November fog settles over the city, Chastity is coughing up blood, her personal life is a slow-motion disaster, and her former colleague, Faller, won’t stop interfering. But nothing’s going to stop her from cutting through the lies – not even the sharks circling ever closer.
Dark, caustic and piercing, Sharks is a searing investigation into greed, power, and the price of resistance in a city devouring itself, from one of Germany’s finest, most original crime writers.
It's my pleasure to be hosting the virtual book tour for Sharks by Simone Buchholz today. Many thanks to Orenda Books for my advance copy of the novel and to Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part.
Sharks is the third book in Simone Buchholz's Chastity Reloaded novels which give English-speaking readers the opportunity to discover the earlier books featuring the state prosecutor. It isn't necessary to have read any of the other books but returning readers will enjoy being able to put more of Chas's convoluted life together.
Chas is not the sort of person that naturally comes to mind when considering her job title but her compulsive need to fully involve herself in her cases, even to the detriment of her health and well-being, and her associations with those who dabble on the wrong side of the law, perhaps mean she is exactly who should be investigating the dark underbelly of Hamburg's Sankt Paul district. At the start of Sharks, she is called to the scene of a bloody double murder; an American couple resident in Germany have been brutally beaten before being shot. They were the last tenants in a run-down apartment building and although the evidence suggests they weren't pleasant people to know, Chas can't help but feel moved by their sad, desolate deaths. There's a rawness to Chastity Riley which prevails over her cynicism and self-destructive lifestyle. Her turbulent past as the daughter of a German mother and American father may have given her her unusual name but she also understands what it means to live on the edges of society, never quite belonging.
Sharks is less a linear crime novel than a series of effortlessly atmospheric vignettes which reveal as much about Chas and her disparate group of friends and colleagues as it does the reason why Walt and Lorraine Tucker met their untimely end. Chas, herself is clearly unwell but in spite of the offers of help from those around her, her inability to stop and rest sees her barely coping with the cough that regularly racks her body, let alone the new complications to her private life. While the investigation into the murdered couple question allows Simone Buchholz to explore the sort of social issues, which, although local, are actually universal, it's Chas's messy, yet sometimes strangely life-affirming interactions which really make this series for me. Her relationship with former criminal, Klastsche, the mutually supportive friendship with Carla, who needs to lean on Chas here, her close bond with her former boss, Faller and her ties to the Sankt Paul district which has become more of a home than anywhere she has lived before, are all part of who she is, People care for Chas, even if she doesn't always take care of herself and the juxtaposition between her smoking, hard-drinking exterior and her more vulnerable inner self is fascinating.
As Chas and her colleagues begin to look into the background to the remorseless regeneration of the rundown Wilhelmsburg district, a new face at work confuses matters still further. It's a credit to Simone Buchholz's writing that she's able to convey the emotional complexities of Chas's own life and the grim frustrations of the case despite the no-words-wasted sparsity of the narrative and succinct plot. It would be remiss of me not to also praise Rachel Ward's fine translation which captures the distinctively cool wit and caustic insight of the prose perfectly.
It should come as no surprise that the sharks of the title aren't found in derelict flats or seedy bars but in the offices and boardrooms of the wealthy and connected. Sharks acknowledges the corruption which often seems to go hand-in-hand with urban renewal and the displacement of long-term residents but doesn't offer any glib solutions or bland happy endings. The gritty black humour and stark pessimism serves the subject far better and this is stylish literary crime fiction at its most authentic. Very highly recommended.
Sharks is published by Orenda Books. It can be ordered directly from their website. Further purchasing links can be found here.
Follow the virtual book tour, details are below.
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Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau. At university, she studied Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School. In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. The critically acclaimed Beton Rouge, Mexico Street, Hotel Cartagena (winner of the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger) and River Clyde all followed suit, with 2023’s The Acapulco and 2024’s The Kitchen reloading the series. She is on the board of PEN Berlin, and is at the forefront of the lobbying movement for fair pay for authors. She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her son.Twitter (X) Website Bluesky
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