by Frank Tallis
|
| List Price: | $15.00 |
| Amazon Price: | $10.20 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
| You Save: | $4.80 (32%) |
| Average Rating: |  |
| Lowest New Price: | $4.99 |
| Availablitiy: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
 |
|
Product Description
A dogged police inspector and an insightful young psychiatrist match wits with depraved criminal minds in this acclaimed mystery series set in Freud’s Vienna.
In glittering turn-of-the-century Vienna, brutal instinct and refined intellect fight for supremacy. The latest, most disturbing example: the mysterious and savage death of a young cadet in the most elite of military academies, St. Florian’s. Even using his cutting-edge investigative techniques, Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt cannot crack the school’s closed and sadistic world. He must again enlist the aid of his frequent ally, Dr. Max Liebermann, an expert in Freudian psychology. But how can Liebermann help when he a crisis of his own: handling his conflicted and forbidden feelings for two different women, one a former patient? As the case unfolds, powerful forces will stop at nothing to keep a dark secret.
Customers who bought this item also bought
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Rheinhardt And Liebermann's Next Caper Is Good Stuff, 2010-07-15
Fatal Lies is the third book in Frank Tallis' Liebermann Papers series, and it is a fine continuation. The principals of Psychoanalyst Max Liebermann and Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt return to investigate the goings on at the military academy of Saint Florian's. At the beginning of the story a student, Thomas Zelenka, has turned up dead in the academy's science laboratory. The autopsy reveals death by natural causes, but Rheinhardt is not convinced. He is curious about some strange scars on Zelenka that while not contributing to the youth's death suggest that something improper was taking place at the academy. Rheinhardt and Liebermann discover a class system among the boys involves bullying. However neither the students nor the faculty are very forthcoming about what happens within the walls of Saint Florian's. Tallis continues to use his deft skills of misdirection to keep the reader guessing, and this story features a somewhat more complex storyline than his prior novels in the series. Thus it takes a little bit longer to tie up all of the loose ends.
*** If you have not read Vienna Blood (book 2 in the series) and do not wish to have one of its plot lines revealed, skip the next paragraph ***
The secondary plot revolves around the dysfunctional love life of Liebermann as he attempts to move on from his failed engagement to Clara Weiss. He is still quite fascinated with his former patient Amelia Lydgate, but he finds his attention divided by an attractive Hungarian musician that he rescues from a group of thugs. While these threads sometimes provide comic relief, I found that in this novel it also takes some of the luster off of Liebermann's character. It definitely provides a contrast against the upstanding family man portrayal of Rheinhardt.
Overall, I have to say that Tallis has done it once again. Fatal Lies is another intellectually stimulating mystery in which early 20th Century Vienna comes alive. I do hope that he continues this series for some time.
Overall: B+
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 My favorite new mystery author!, 2010-06-11
Freud's disciple is a psychoanalytical Sherlock Holmes finding out more about the sadism going on at a military academy. Just couldn't wait to get back to the book!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
"... an extraordinarily broad range of topics ...", 2010-05-04
That's a fair assessment of "Fatal Lies", the third of Frank Tallis's Rheinhardt/Liebermann novels -- at least a new 'topic' in each of its 81 snapshot chapters, ranging from Viennese waltzes to Mexican psychedelic mushrooms by way of recurrent detours into the works of Kraft-Ebbing and Lucian of Samosota, and with walk-on appearances by Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler! Meanwhile the book owes a little to Harry Potter and a lot to Young Torless. The plot, I'm afraid, has all the consistency of overbeaten egg whites, and Herr Doktor Liebermann's sleuthly logic is at times drawn as thin as phyllo dough. "Vienna Lies" is an hors-d'oeuvre platter of murders, suicides, and lethal accidents, but the real feast is the dessert tray of esoterica for polymath readers.
To be fair and balanced - hateful phrase! - it's hardly a great novel, not even a proper shelf-mate for "Young Torless", Robert Musil's profound depiction of boarding-school Angst. Rheinhardt the baritone cum investigator and Liebermann the pianist qua psychiatrist are already familiar from their two previous crime tales, although Rheinhardt is rather upstaged by his volunteer colleague in "Vienna Lies". After all, we get to be diverted by the good doctor's risque amours, including a bit of extra-marital intercourse fumed by absinthe! The 'broad range of topics' in "Vienna Lies" includes some 'fascinating' case studies: sexual vampirism, necrophilia, teacher-student liaisons, sadism, and even a hint of cadaverphagia. Of course, the setting IS Vienna!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Quarrying Torless: an homage to Robert Musil, 2010-04-10
This is volume 3 of the `Liebermann Papers', i.e. the detective series with the shrink Max Liebermann and the cop Oskar Rheinhardt, set in the early 20th century in Vienna. While the setting is as musical and as culturally rewarding as the first two volumes, not to forget the pastries, I am afraid that in terms of thriller value, this 3rd one is a little lacking. It is still a pleasant tour of historical environments, plus some gruesomeness, but the plot is not really gripping. Maybe such series don't carry that far? I also think that it is overloaded with references: Musil's Torless; Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, his Zarathustra, his Will to Power; Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis; Freud's Dream Interpretation; Arendt's Banality of Evil. A book of fiction can get too clever for its own good!
The novel has 2 main subjects: the murder case in a school environment, and then Max L's love confusions. Cupid was a cunning archer! After Max ditched his Austrian Jewish fiancée because he found that he had nothing to talk about with her, he is now gripped by falling- in- love attacks, first with his English ex-patient, then with a Magyar violinist. We sympathize with his problems, and are not a little envious (provided we are men), but hasn't that kind of thing been done before? Max turns out to be given to jealousy, which in turn worries him.
The crime story is about a military academy where sadistic bullying is the norm. That, again, is not an unusual thing and not particularly interesting. The main sadist seems to be a youthful Nietzsche reader who is quite convinced that he has what it takes to become an Uebermensch, a Superman as per Zarathustra. He has the will to power, he thinks. Well, that kind of thing probably did happen. It is still not all that interesting. And anyway, it turns out different from what we believe, as expected.
Tallis chose the name Eichmann for the school headmaster, and he explains that he did that deliberately, to have a link to the banality of evil.
Robert Musil, the author of the novella about Young Torless, is not mentioned in the novel. If he were, it would be an anachronism. However Tallis makes it quite clear that he took a lot of the details and the atmosphere in the school from Musil.
All in all, still a 4 star fun, but not as great as the 1st in the series and not as gripping as the 2nd.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Different, 2010-03-06
"I am uncomfortable with that world - the world of spies - with its deceptions, double deceptions, feints, and ruses - its fatal lies. It is a world where nothing is as it seems, and nobody can be trusted."
Occasionally, an author will sum up his work in a few sentences that accurately reflect the pace of the novel you've just read. That's certainly the case with Frank Tallis's third installment of the Liebermann papers series, "Fatal Lies". After the more straightforward "A Death in Vienna" and "Vienna Blood", this one changes direction slightly, involving intrigue, espionage, and enough love triangles to make you dizzy.
When a young Hungarian student turns up dead at one of Austria's military schools, the emperor and security office want to ensure that what has happened has truly been an accident. But, as is usual when Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt and his psychiatrist friend, Doctor Max Liebermann, get together, nothing is as it seems. The boy has clearly been maltreated, and an anonymous letter to a Viennese newspaper enables Rheinhardt to follow his gut and continue to investigate what appears to be an open-and-shut case.
Rather than simply chasing down a murderer or two, Rheinhardt and Liebermann find themselves at the heart of a strange assignment involving code names, secret missions, and a dead general. Max meets a new woman who manages to intrigue him, and somehow Rheinhardt's boss is involved in more cases than one would know what to do with.
I wish I could give this book 3.5 stars, as that is closer to my actual opinion of it. It was certainly entertaining (and I write this around 1:30 am, having just finished it), but it didn't have the same level of intrigue as the series' first two books. They may have featured stranger cases, but I felt that they were written a lot tighter; this one felt as if it unravelled a bit, especially toward the end. It's not as great as the first two in the series, but it's not bad. It's just...different.
Price is accurate as of the date/time indicated. Prices and product availability are subject to change. Any price displayed on the Amazon website at the time of purchase will govern the sale of this product.
|
Store Categories
|