cover image The Wall

The Wall

Max Annas, trans. from the German by Rachel Hildebrandt. Catalyst, $16 trade paper (164p) ISBN 978-1-946395-14-6

German author Annas (The Farm) makes his U.S. debut with this repetitive tale of a tragedy of errors set in East London, South Africa, which won the 2017 German Crime Fiction Prize. Moses, a black college student, is headed home to change for a date with his girlfriend after helping a professor put some books into storage. When his car and phone die, he’s stranded near the Pines, an exclusive gated community. Moses manages to sneak through a gate into the Pines, but he soon finds himself in peril after two white men, one an armed security guard, start chasing him. Meanwhile, Thembinkosi and Nozipho, two thieves, slip into the Pines and get a shock when they find the corpse of a white woman, an apparent murder victim, in the freezer of a house they break into. The arch tone isn’t a good fit for the violence that ensues, and any message about racial stereotyping is thin at best. American crime fiction fans who value suspense will have to look elsewhere. (May)