"Being involved heightens
the feelings"
Political detective novels on the edge
by DB Blettenberg
Elfriede Müller
Translation: Sue Neale
The novels of DB Blettenberg are regarded
as classics of crime fiction, something which is due more to his
longevity than to the various prizes he has won. He has been writing
since 1972, although his early work was mainly short stories, novellas,
commentaries and screenplays. Born in 1949 into a working class
family in a rural area, he completed his training in technical
drawing for mechanical engineering in Leverkusen . After military
service and a time at the naval college in Flensburg-Mürwig
he went to sea as a radio operator, then spent the next twenty years
working in international development in Ecuador , Thailand , Nicaragua
and Ghana . These stays abroad inform his writing and since 1994
he has worked as a full-time author.
His
first crime novel Don't
Cry for Me in Quito appeared in 1981.
This novel was republished in 2005 along with “Agaves Die a Lonely
Death” under the wonderful title Blood for Bolivar.
Although his first work came out in the 80s it has strengths and
weaknesses typical of 70s literature. It is highly political, with
universal themes, although has female characters who are merely a
foil to male heroes and antiheroes, and who contribute little to
the plot. Don't Cry
for Me in Quito is a Brechtian morality tale about governance.
A failed putsch in Ecuador could have happened equally as
well in any other Latin-American country. The ringleader takes exile
in Colombia to prepare his return, but others want him dead, his
murder being planned in Argentina and elsewhere. Blettenberg convincingly
depicts persecution under the dictatorship of the time.
Alongside a tedious and very
stereotypical main character, who also plays a leading role in Agaves
Die a Lonely Death, interesting
supporting characters race around South America, in particular Gabriel
Santander Garcia: “He had explored every possible way of overturning
the established power but had experienced much disappointment. His
realism became rather cynical. He fought lots of small battles to
win a big war (…) he could have been called an agent, or a resistance
fighter, a rebel of continental calibre.” (p. 205) The story was
about Ecuador, but could just as well have been about the World
Cup in Argentina or the financial crisis in Peru. Bettenberg knowledgeably
weaves together the recent history of Latin America without appearing
didactic. Having a German social engineer called Wolf Strassner who
was engaged to commit a political assassination in which he believed,
but for which he was also paid doesn't make any sense. Blettenberg
would have done better to leave it up to his Latin American characters.
The fast-paced style continues
in Agaves
Die a Lonely Death, although
without the Brechtian overtones. Unhappily Wolf Strassner is involved
again. In Quito, the capital of Ecuador , a rightwing extremist
murders twenty-seven trade-unionists on the orders of the state.
This is a situation in which it has to be decided what Strassner
is to do and which presents his friends in the trade unions with
an ideal opportunity for an attempt on the Interior Minister's life.
As in the previous novel, the description of the political backdrop
is very well written. “There were too many of them. Twelve appeared
all at once. Twelve pairs of sunglasses. Twelve dark grey suits.
Twelve shapes of medium height. Some had hats. The others had dark
hair. So many of them grouped together was more effective than wearing
masks. Each hid the other. A mass of anonymous people.” (pg. 10).
An unpleasant businessman commissions Strassner to recover a stolen
painting, which lands him in a political hornets' nest. The businessman's
wife takes a shine to Strassner and does her best to get him into
bed, but this is just a predictable element of ‘noir' fiction and
does nothing for the plot nor for the political setting. An attractive
female trade-unionist might have been a better bet. In this novel
too, the supporting characters impress, especially the murderer and
art thief Kleber Larea, a cynic who murders not for reasons of ideology
but who is himself a victim: “I didn't answer him. The trigger offered
no resistance. The bullet ejected and the Walther pulled slightly
up to the right. The projectile slammed into his chest, forcing his
body sideways.” The hostile net closes around the trade union activists
and Blettenberg succeeds in getting across their fear without over-dramatising.
Then the farmworkers' bodies are left in front of the trade union
offices.
Hard
Cuts (1995) works less well. The book came out in paperback
in 2005. It is very good on anticolonialism, but is over-complicated
with yet again a weak main character. It could have done with one
fewer country and one fewer liaison. It deals with the Lebensborn
programme, about which Daimler wants to make a film. This idea is
not popular, firstly with the Nazis who blow up his friend, then
with the production company who withdraw their support and also their
affections: the boss is Daimler's lover. East African history is
depicted well and Kilimanjaro is described magnificently as the “German
mountain”: “Proudly they told me how they'd built a stone pyramid
on top of the Kaiser-Wilhelm to prove they'd reached the summit and
had planted the German flag on it which will now fly in the ‘highest
place' on German soil. I doubt the enemy will have lowered the flag
and taken ownership of our most wonderful highest German mountain.” (pg
187) Blettenberg quotes the reminiscences of General von Lettow-Vorbeck
whose writings on colonialism will be read with pleasure again today1.
The story of the Lebensborn origins of an American family is superfluous.
Ven Daimler is a product of the programme. He also has an attractive
twin sister, but he doesn't find that out until he is the middle
of writing the screenplay. We could also have managed without the
part of the plot dealing with an East German who wants vengeance
for his mother and looks for his father, a member of the Stasi, in
East Africa in order to kill him.
However the excerpts from the screenplay
and the depiction of the Neo-nazis are very well done: “That was how it was with the Germans.
They were lost without orders from their superiors.” (pg.81). The
same goes for the character from the American military who becomes
a Florida estate agent.
As well as a fear of old age, Blettenberg shows his displeasure
with officialdom, in this case with the state film financing department.
As if one of the last preserves of society should be privatised!
Daimler is an unpleasant man, who sometimes thinks of himself as
a great artist, sometimes as a failure. His interaction with other
characters in the novel, apart from the old American, is not believable.
The most interesting character is the former communist Staal, who
has gone to East Africa to hunt for SS-members and who unfortunately
doesn't feature enough.
Land
of Hope', Blettenberg's latest book, describes the difficult
work of the Truth Commission in South Africa. Confining the action
to a single country serves the plot well and allows the reader to
immerse himself in the history of that country. In Blettenberg's
description South Africa 's landscape, music and culture take on
a political dimension. The people aren't always what they seem and
strong secondary characters whose behaviour is influenced by the
country's history and culture are a central part of the novel. The
plot is based on the kidnapping and eventual release of the daughter
of a middle-class family whose abductors get away with the ransom.
Seven years later the main character, Helm Tempow, is sent to Cape
Town to investigate. There he comes up against a man who turns out
not to be the kidnapper, but who is about to die. He also meets the
kidnapped girl who wants to go back to her abductor, with whom she
has had a child. The Truth Commission's search for proof of the kidnapper's
misdeeds is portrayed very convincingly, unlike the reunion of the
couple. White Bertrand is a criminal who has hunted down and murdered
his opponents, with whom Stan Wishbone joins forces as a sidekick
in order to unmask him. Wishbone's mimesis is excellent and psychologically
very convincing: “'You're very versatile. What else can you do?'
I asked Wishbone. ‘Apart from playing drums, and acting as head waiter
and dogsbody for Bertrand'(..) What did Desmond say about Wishbone? A
good comrade. He was one of the best. A good soldier for the cause
and a brilliant musician. Always modest. Never wanted attention.
What a shame he's gone. Nobody sees or hears anything of him any
more. That was how it was with the former freedomfighters. Some
went out in the field to be grape pickers, others carried on working
undercover for the cause.” (pg 183f)
Blettenberg writes well and
in an exciting style. His descriptions of distant countries are far
removed from destinations tourists would recognise and it would be
good if he could allow his female characters to develop more independence
and intelligence. Doc, a former colleague of the main character
in Land of Hope would be a good place
to start.
All novels are published by Pendragon.
1 Se
Böhlke-Itzen, Janntje
und Joachim Zeller: Eine schöne Erinnerung. Wie der deutsche
Kolonialismus verherrlicht wird. ('Good memories. The glamorisation
of German Colonialism') In: Iz3w Nov/Dec 2006. Edition 297. S. 14–17.
