The friendly, unobtrusive, older man lives in a small apartment above a pet shop. Apparently he's not the kind who could do harm to anyone. But every now and then, mostly on weekends, he drives his car far above land and approaches little girls...
Suddenly a little girl is standing all by herself outside in the cold. She's starring into the window of the pet shop, day after day. The older man approaches the child, gradually gains its trust and invites it into his apartment... .
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Since Sigrid's husband died five years ago, she's been struggling to keep the house and home she and her daughter Nicole live in. Now she desperately seeks a new tenant for the other half of her house. The friendly, older man who likes to live in the apartment gives her the creeps but he's willing to pay more than the last tenant and even pays for using the garage. His name is Josef Genardy.
Sigrid doesn't know she's opened the door to her home to the Monster that killed her friends daughter. That the Monster has used and killed not only her friends child but another one, too. He's been abusing children his whole life and always got away with it because nobody ever suspected him.
But Sigrid is a very emotional woman that listens to her feelings and when her daughter's friend doesn't want to come to their house anymore, she suspects something is very very wrong, especially when she notices how eager Genardy is to touch children.
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Der stille Herr Genardy is a German book that hasn't been published in English. So far there is only one book that has been published in English by Petra Hammesfahr: The Sinner (ISBN 1904738257, pub. 02/08). I haven't read it yet.
The tale about Sigrid and her daughter is very much depressing. Especially because of Sigrid's lack of confidence to speak up to others and act accordingly to her feelings, regardless if wrong or right. She even didn't do anything when she knew there is definitely something wrong with her new tenant. When she knew he is a pedophile.
I was mighty annoyed by her handling the situation so badly regardless of her past and what she went through with her dead husband.
The author picks up a topic most people don't want to talk or hear about. She makes the reader see into Gernardy's distrubed mind, teaching the reader that the Monster often is a victim of his own abnormal drive which leads much further than the usual thriller goes. A path I reluctantly agreed to walk on and I'm glad I came out of it unharmed.
Rating:
Visit Petra Hammesfahr.
Paperback: 333 Seiten
Publisher: Lübbe; 1. Edition (June 13, 2006)
Labuage: German
ISBN-10: 3404155270
ISBN-13: 9783404155279
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