The Good Cop

At the end of the war in 1918, Maximilian Wolf returns to Munich. His sketches of soldiers and people in the street capture life in the battle-scarred postwar city. He gets a job at a newspaper, working beside journalist Sophie Auerbach. Together they chronicle the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis until the newspaper offices are bombed, which brings police detective Willi Geismeier to their doors. Although Max’s sketches help identify the bombers, Willi is taken off the case because he is a good detective who opposes criminals and Nazis. Throughout the 1920s, these three people chronicle the abuses and horror of Hitler and his supporters, until Hitler is named chancellor in 1933. All three abruptly disappear when a second newspaper, The Munich Post, is destroyed and the staff sent to Dachau concentration camp. The unconventional story resumes when the Americans arrive in Munich in 1945. In a disturbing, menacing novel featuring courageous, believable characters, former New Yorker cartoonist and author (“Louis Morgon” spy novels) Steiner tells a thought-provoking story of the importance of a free press when a country and its justice system are in upheaval.