A tale of corruption and murder in HAMBURG

23rd December 2025

Sharks by Simone Buckholz, a tale of corruption and murder in Hamburg. Translated by Rachel Ward.

The very welcome return of Prosecutor Chastity Riley in another crime thriller set in Hamburg. Chasity has a bad cough – sounds more like consumption to me (possibly as irritating to her as it is to us…) but that does not stop her investigating the murder of a middle aged American couple in an apartment in a less than desirable part of the city. The apartment block is essentially half low rent, low quality apartments and half a squat. No one seems to quite know why the Americans lived there – apart from the obvious reason that they were very low on cash. The ownership of the block is somewhat murky, but rumour circulates that the block is owned by a company that deliberately runs down buildings to sell them on for development when they are empty. Could the couple’s murder have been part of a plan to see the building empty? The area in question, Wilhelmsburg (just south of the Elbe), is prime land for gentrification.

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Chastity works with her usual police team and with her ex boss, now a private detective hired by the couple’s daughter, to try and determine what has happened. The trail leads them to Copenhagen and Malmö. But the higher ups in the Hamburg police and the City Planning Department seem to want everything closed down pretty quickly and without much fuss. Chastity suspects, and sets out to prove, that corruption is involved.

Sharks is a worthy continuation of Simone Buckholz’s series of Hamburg crime books featuring Chastity. The city, with all its tawdriness and seediness – as well as its splendour, comes through very clearly.

Tony for the TripFiction team

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