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Babylon Berlin
- Gereon Rath, Book 1
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
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Babylon Berlin
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Summary
Berlin, 1929. Detective Inspector Rath was a successful career officer in the Cologne Homicide Division before a shooting incident in which he inadvertently killed a man. He has been transferred to the vice squad in Berlin, a job he detests even though he finds a new friend in his boss, Chief Inspector Wolter.
There is seething unrest in the city, and the Commissioner of Police has ordered the vice squad to ruthlessly enforce the ban on May Day demonstrations. The result is catastrophic, with many dead and injured, and a state of emergency is declared in the Communist strongholds of the city.
When a car is hauled out of Berlin's Landwehr Canal with a mutilated corpse inside, the Commissioner decides to use this mystery to divert the attention of press and public from the casualties of the demonstrations. The biggest problem is that the corpse cannot be identified.
Volker Kutscher was born in 1962 in Lindlar, West Germany. He is the author of the enormously successful Gereon Rath crime series which, in addition to compelling narrative, is notable for its scrupulous accuracy about Germany in the years between its beginning in 1927 and the approach to the Second World War.
What listeners say about Babylon Berlin
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- The zozzler
- 28-09-22
A great story
Enjoyed this but some of the names were hard to follow.
Narrator is excellent.
I have watched the TV series based on this and there are differences but both have their charm.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Craig
- 21-08-22
Ripping Entertainment.
Taking you further back into the 1920's Germany and crime. A great first story of this up and coming Detective Inspector. A growing love story too. Full of action and grim crime. Enjoy.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- William Doody
- 18-02-18
first class
excellent mixture of crime and politics set in a a very mixed up period of history
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- E. Mason
- 31-07-21
Dreadful accents …
I enjoyed the story but really disliked the narration, The strong English regional accents means that the atmosphere of Berlin post WW1 is completely lost. I think I’ll try the second book in Kindle to see if I can “take to” Gereon Rath a bit more .
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- michael v keogh
- 11-08-21
long winded
too many pointless location addresses given, no point to the location unless you're interested in 1929 Berlin
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- John Franks
- 17-06-18
Confusing delivery of a good story.
I bought this book having seen the exceptionally good German TV production of the same name. Their attention to detail and historical accuracy was way up there with the very best albeit the story differed from the book slightly. My confusion really is with the ability of the books author to capture the environment of 1920's Berlin, or not as it happens. The story is a good one, most of the characters are well crafted and the period is fascinating particularly from a German perspective however its written in an American style modern procedural detective style complete with forensic departments and paramedics none of which existed at that time, indeed the entire narrative was littered with this type of misnomer.
All in all lazy research spoilt what should have been a particularly good book.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Harrow
- 03-01-18
Atmospheric, yet predictable, police procedural
I found this book to be very enjoyable but not genuinely gripping.
The atmosphere of 1920's Berlin comes through strongly which is just as well because the plot and characters are not particularly memorable.
The characters are the usual police procedural line up: lonely male with troubled past; senior officer showing him how to bend the rules; politically minded police chiefs; independent and very gorgeous young woman ; pseudo-sophisticated crime lord . . . I felt it was only the historical context which lifted the book. The Nazis, the communists and the ravers prowling the city were the most enjoyable parts of the book.
Narration is excellent and I will probably go on to explore the series.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Fiona Hope
- 02-08-22
Evocative Crime Story Set in a Berlin Recovering from one ear just before another.
Easy to see why this has made it to TV. Good characters, excellent story line overlayed with a evocative historical backdrop.
Some elements of the storyline are weaker than others with slow passages and some predictability. However generally the narrative moves along quickly and with style.
Well worth a listen!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- william archer
- 19-11-22
Informative novel
A great story between the war years in Germany .
Telling us how things were and why the nazis came to power
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Babar555
- 22-04-21
Berlin based
Berlin based story so why has narrator opted for his chosen accents , makes the storyline very hard to get into and doesn't help create the atmoshpere of the late 1920s Berlin. Better sticking to the DVDs at least you get to hear it in German, making the characters a lot more believable.
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4 people found this helpful