Book Review of Munich Wolf by Rory Clements

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(This review is based on a free review copy from the publisher via Net Galley UK)

An excellent murder and survival thriller set in Munich while Bavaria was still the centre of NAZI power.

The author has set several novels before, during and after WW2 and this is one of his best so far. Partly because the hero is trying to avoid heroism at all costs.

A criminal detective and a political policeman find themselves in conflict with each other even before either knows who the other is, then they are required to work with each other whilst being alert to every opportunity to destroy each other. (This really is the way NAZI Germany worked, right up to the top. Even within Hitler’s inner circle, his preferred method was to make his associates fight each other until a clear winner emerged. This selects the plan with the strongest advocate rather than the strongest plan and the chances of success dwindle with each reiteration of the challenge process.)

Neither Inspector Sebastian Wolff nor Sergeant Hans Winter have any intention of challenging the regime as such: they are both really only trying to survive but it takes a while for them to perceive each other correctly. Constant manipulation of their actions and the general situation by those so disproportionately more powerful than their actual superiors creates a storm that they can only survive by helping each other -and in a fascist State that’s actually more subversive than blowing up railway lines.

What makes this well-researched and well-written novel most interesting is quite nuanced, in that Hitler isn’t shown as holding power by being the most extreme candidate (at least, not in 1935 when the story is set); there are others in or close to the party MUCH further round the bend, but all in one particular direction or another. This story revolves around the Thule Society, but there were other factions and sects within the Party. Even in an “extreme right” party there are left and right wings and in terms of economic policy the National Socialists were actually the hard left. In such a situation, powerful individuals oppose the rival they fear the most. The left-leaning ones fear what the right-leaning ones might do and the right-leaning ones fear what the left-leanings might do. So they agree on someone who’s not clearly right or left. The problem is that the centre-standing candidate might do almost anything and he often does. Both Stalin and Hitler came to lead their respective parties through the same mechanism.

The neo-pagan murderer in this story turns out to be so deranged that the “highest authority” in Germany comes to regret trying to cover for him. This raises the unsettling idea that the Third Reich contained and could even have been led by such a person rather than Hitler. There was potential for evil beyond even the Holocaust.

Munich Wolf by Roy Clements is published by Bonnier Books UK on the 18^th of January 2024