Cut

Security guard Gabriel Naumann, the hero of German author Raabe’s fast-paced debut, spent five years in a psychiatric clinic after witnessing and not being able to remember his parents’ murder. One night nearly 30 years later, he responds to an alarm at a long-vacant Berlin house. Once inside the house, he receives a frantic call from Liz Anders, his journalist girlfriend, begging for help. Then the line goes dead. He rushes to the location she described only to find the corpse of a man whose throat has been slit. Authorities on the scene think Gabriel is the man’s murderer. After escaping police custody, he reaches out to his brother, David, from whom he’s been estranged for 20 years. Liz’s kidnapper, after sending Gabriel an envelope containing her cell phone, calls Gabriel on the phone and threatens to harm Liz unless Gabriel can figure out how to locate them. In order to do so, Gabriel must remember what happened the night his parents were killed. Unfortunately, the action builds to an overlong and too graphic ending. (Apr.)