Fantastically dark, brilliantly funny and excruciatingly tragic, Heinz Strunk’s novel is the first to eschew his trademark autobiographical style. The name of his terrible hero is Fritz Honka, a name that still resonates chillingly with anyone who grew up in 1970s Germany. Honka was a serial killer of women, came from the lowest social strata and became infamous during his sensational trial in 1976. A pitiful figure, Honka was psychologically and physically scarred by the abuse and violence of his youth, and would pick up his victims in “The Golden Glove”, a notorious Hamburg drinking den. Strunk’s narrative dives deep into an infernal night world of alcoholism and derelict housing, whose inhabitants seem robbed of their humanity by a desolate life which knows no kindness.
Told with huge energy, great historical precision and profound compassion, this is a disturbing portrayal of a world in which both a notorious killer and his unhappy victims were well known in the courts. Yet the trajectory of this story also bisects the world of the wealthy a n d powe r f u l . Finally, rich and poor meet in a murky dive off Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, a melting pot of alcohol, sex, misery and crime.
