There are tons of brilliant German thrillers—especially if you like psychological suspense. Personally, I’m not a massive fan of blood and guts or over the top storylines; I like it when ordinary lives get out of control and when you can watch normal people while they clamber along their own personal abysses or play perfidious little games with each other.
This is the kind of stuff I write about in my thriller Dear Child: Lena, a young student, is kidnapped and disappears for fourteen years. Nobody suspects that her kidnapper has taken her to a remote forest hut and has forced her there to act out his ideal of a family life. Lena even bears him two children. One day, she manages to escape with her 13-year-old daughter Hannah. Three people—the kidnapping victim, her young daughter, and the father of the kidnapped woman—fight from then on to regain a bit of normality after this crime, but they all have to painfully realize that the nightmare is far from over. And that’s not only because the kidnapper wants to get back what he thinks belongs to him, but also because the victims are digging their own abysses.
A large part of my thriller is set in the Bavarian Forest near the Czech border, but that doesn’t really matter. This story could take place anywhere in the world, and to me that’s exactly what makes a good book: regardless of where the story is set, I want to put myself into the situation immediately and identify with the characters‘ emotions. Therefore, I don’t believe that books have anything like “a nationality,” and I find it difficult to identify a typical characteristic that makes a German thriller German (except that it will most likely be set in Germany).
Nevertheless, here are five great fellow writers from Germany, whose books I would like to recommend to you. Four of them have already been translated into English.
Sorry by Zoran Drvenkar
If you were to wake me in the middle of the night asking me for my favorite German (and, indeed, all-time favorite) author, you would hear me say, quick like a shot: Zoran Drvenkar. The native Croatian reinvented the thriller genre from a linguistic point of view. His writing is so special and ingenious that when I read his stories, I never know whether I should celebrate him ecstatically or crawl into the next corner, crying out of sheer self-doubt. Zoran Drvenkar is just a hero.
Splinter by Sebastian Fitzek
Sebastian Fitzek is the German master of cliffhangers—once you start reading, you just can’t stop. Such is the case in this thriller about a psychopath known as the “soul breaker.” With his true identity undetected, he’s been taken to a psychiatric clinic, where he is now playing his dangerous game with doctors and patients.
Blue Night by Simone Buchholz (Chastity Riley-Reihe)
Simone Buchholz’s main character, the German-American Chastity Riley, is something like the Dr. House of the Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office. Snooty, churlish, sarcastic, sometimes drunk and always inappropriate. The whole series breaks the boundaries of typical crime novels, whereby the cases that Chastity has to work on are almost irrelevant with such a magnetic main character.
The Trap by Melanie Raabe
Along with Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Paula Hawkin’s Girl on the Train, The Trap by Melanie Raabe was one of the books that inspired me to write a thriller myself. The main character, Linda Conrads, is an author who has not left her home for years after the violent death of her sister. When she sees her sister’s killer on TV, she decides to set a trap for him by writing a book about him.
So dunkel der Wald by Michaela Kastel
Michaela Kastel is actually Austrian, but let’s not be petty. Especially because “So Dark the Forest” is such a fantastic and above all emotional thriller that will hopefully be translated into English soon. It’s about Ronja and Jannik, who were kidnapped by “Paps” many years ago and have since lived in a house in the forest with other kidnapping victims. One day freedom seems to be within reach—but after such a long time in captivity, Ronja and Janick are completely overwhelmed by such a prospect, and the situation gets dramatically out of control.
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