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Book Summary and Reviews of The Informer by Craig Nova

The Informer by Craig Nova

The Informer

A Novel

by Craig Nova

  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Mar 2010, 320 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Berlin in 1930 is a city of dark paranoia and covert power struggles, where violence can erupt at any moment. The Brownshirts dominate the streets, but the Red Front is building its insurgence.

Gaelle, a beautiful but desperate young prostitute with a scar across one side of her face, trades in something far more powerful—and dangerous—than sex: information. To possess her, men will do more than pay—they will tell her secrets. What Gaelle wants is protection.

Felix, a sixteen-year-old boy with a lame foot, negotiates Gaelle’s price, accompanies her in limousines when she feels threatened, and reminds her to take care of herself. But can he really keep her from harm?

Armina Treffen is an investigator for the Berlin Police. Several women’s bodies have been found in the park, murdered in the same manner, and Armina, too, seeks Gaelle’s confidence to help her catch a serial killer.

Even as Gaelle tries to protect herself by possessing information, she becomes more entangled in a complex web of politics and murder in a city in which men will go to any length to maintain the power of silence.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"While those expecting a conventional police procedural may be disappointed, the author’s evocative portrait of Weimar Germany and sophisticated portrayals of the lead characters will satisfy most readers." - Publishers Weekly

"Nova’s main concern is the complex interplay among his characters, but he develops the suspense nicely, too, flashing forward to Berlin in 1945 for a peculiar but effective finale." - Booklist

"This is a dark but fantastic novel." - John Irving

This information about The Informer was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Stephen

The Informer by Craig Nova
The Informer by Craig Nova puts yet another notch on the belt of an author with an already stellar body of work that so many people have not yet been fortunate enough to discover. Currently, I am reading The Congressman's Daughter and recently, I finished his most recent novel before The Informer -- Cruisers -- and I can't help but be simultaneously addicted to the elegant restraint of his prose and the raw power with which he delves into the human soul.

In The Informer, Nova takes readers to Berlin in 1930 -- where politics are becoming increasingly polarized, the economy is in shambles, and information is constantly manipulated and distorted for individuals and groups to leverage power against one another (sound like the state of affairs in the U.S. today?)

The plot follows Armina, one of the few women working in Inspectorate A, the serious crimes division of the Berlin police department, as she traverses the dark underbelly of the city, confronting its bizarre inhabitants. As Armina investigates, she encounters Gaelle, a young prostitute with a scarred face and alluring eroticism that allows her to slip in and out of the lives of politically connected men—many corrupt, some sinister, all looking for power, money, and sex. Gaelle and her partner Felix, a boy hustler with a lame foot, know the value of a secret, and also its price, in the depraved, cosmopolitan city.

With the discovery of each new body, Armina identifies more closely with the murders, almost as if she is losing a part of herself with each crime. As she edges closer to the dangerous truth, the lines between true and false, friend and enemy, and good and evil begin to blur.

The Informer is at once startling and poignant. The characters invite you to wonder in the abysses of their souls. The setting is eerily reminiscent of that in which we live today. This book is one not to miss.

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Author Information

Craig Nova

Craig Nova is the author of ten novels and has received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is also the recipient of NEA and Guggenheim fellowships. His writing has appeared in Esquire, Paris Review, New York Times Magazine, and other publications.

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