The German
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9781590213094
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by Lee Thomas
1944 - Barnard, Texas. At the height of World War II, a killer preys on the young men of a quiet Texas town. The murders are calculated, vicious, and they are just beginning. Sheriff Tom Rabbit and his men are baffled and the community he serves is terrified of the monster lurking their streets. The only clues the killer leaves behind are painted snuffboxes containing notes written in German. As the panic builds all eyes turn toward a quiet man with secrets of his own. Ernst Lang fled Germany in 1934. Once a brute, a soldier, a leader of the Nazi party, he has renounced aggression and embraces a peaceful obscurity. But Lang is haunted by an impossible past. He remembers his own execution and the extremes of sex and violence that led to it. He remembers the men he led into battle, the men he seduced, and the men who betrayed him. But are these the memories of a man given a second life, or the delusions of a lunatic?
Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Fantasy/Horror/Science Fiction!
Paperback, 278 pages
1944 - Barnard, Texas. At the height of World War II, a killer preys on the young men of a quiet Texas town. The murders are calculated, vicious, and they are just beginning. Sheriff Tom Rabbit and his men are baffled and the community he serves is terrified of the monster lurking their streets. The only clues the killer leaves behind are painted snuffboxes containing notes written in German. As the panic builds all eyes turn toward a quiet man with secrets of his own. Ernst Lang fled Germany in 1934. Once a brute, a soldier, a leader of the Nazi party, he has renounced aggression and embraces a peaceful obscurity. But Lang is haunted by an impossible past. He remembers his own execution and the extremes of sex and violence that led to it. He remembers the men he led into battle, the men he seduced, and the men who betrayed him. But are these the memories of a man given a second life, or the delusions of a lunatic?
Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Fantasy/Horror/Science Fiction!
Paperback, 278 pages
"With The German, Thomas chips away at the thin coat of varnish that separates the veneer of civility from the undercoat of barbarism. The result is a novel that builds slowly – with painstaking attention paid to character development and the establishment of mood – to an unexpectedly fierce, heartrending finale that’s less an eyebrow-raising surprise and more a series of rapid-fire sucker punches that will leave you slack-jawed and breathless. Devastating in its unflinching look at the nature of human cruelty arising from fear of the unknown and gorgeously rendered in a literary style that calls to mind earlier Peter Straub, The German is this summer’s must-read genre title." - Lambda Literary
"Thomas's compelling imagery (religion and politics are 'gardens of atrocity' that grow 'fat succulent flora') and disturbing portrait of humanity at its worse will haunt readers long after the last page is turned." - Publishers Weekly
"The German is an exquisitely written, chilling suspense thriller with elements of horror fiction that chronicles the unravelling of a town as a result of fear and paranoia. While the central plot is focussed on the mystery of the serial killer that is terrorizing the town by mutilating and killing it’s young men and boys, at the same time Mr. Thomas explores the violence and evil that lurks amongst the townspeople when some succumb to their baser instincts brought about by ignorance, fear and prejudice." - Indie Reviews, 5 stars
"Thomas's compelling imagery (religion and politics are 'gardens of atrocity' that grow 'fat succulent flora') and disturbing portrait of humanity at its worse will haunt readers long after the last page is turned." - Publishers Weekly
"The German is an exquisitely written, chilling suspense thriller with elements of horror fiction that chronicles the unravelling of a town as a result of fear and paranoia. While the central plot is focussed on the mystery of the serial killer that is terrorizing the town by mutilating and killing it’s young men and boys, at the same time Mr. Thomas explores the violence and evil that lurks amongst the townspeople when some succumb to their baser instincts brought about by ignorance, fear and prejudice." - Indie Reviews, 5 stars