Lead Review (Die Liebe Sucht Ein Zimmer)

• Book: Die Liebe sucht ein Zimmer
• Location: Warsaw
• Author: David Safier

Review Author: tripfiction

I first came across David Safier when I read A Miss Merkel Mystery: Murder at the Castle (TR into English: by Jamie Bulloch). That novel had an ingenuity and lightness of touch that really touched me. This also touched me but in a very different way. The subject matter is much darker given the scene is set in the heart of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, when death is a given for so many people, typhus is raging, lice are rampant, famine is an everyday given, and the ever present threat of the Nazis conditions people’s behaviour. Fear is ubiquitous.

This is the story of Sara, an actress and we find out a little about her past as she delights in an upcoming theatre performance. She was married off at a young age and experienced nothing but cruelty from her husband… that was 10 years ago.

Now, life is very different and she has just one short evening to decide her fate.

The author captures the heavy, cloying and atmosphere redolent with fear extremely well. It is not really an upbeat read but hope is kept alive in the darkest of times.

I listened to this as an audiobook and I was altogether taken by the raspy voice of the narrator Katharina Thalbach, although in many ways it fitted the nature of the story.

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