The Good Cop by Peter Steiner is a bleak book. It’s also a very important book about truth and freedom of the press. The timely book will hit home for many readers.

At the end of the war in 1918, Maximilian Wolf makes his way back home to Munich. In his sketches of soldiers and people in the street, he captures the life in the war-torn and post-war city. His drawings land him 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 destroyed by a bomb.

The bombing brings police detective William Geismeier to their doors. Max’s sketches prove useful in identifying the bombers, while Sophie recuperates in the hospital. But, Willi is taken off the case. He’s a good detective, a good man. But, he doesn’t hide his feelings about criminals or Nazis. And that puts him in opposition to the Nazis in the police department.

Throughout the 1920s, these three people, two journalists and a cop, 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. That’s also the end of their story, until 1945, when the Americans arrive in Munich.

Steiner, a former cartoonist for The New Yorker, has written a disturbing, menacing novel with shadows of current U.S. and world politics. It’s a frightening scenario. Steiner uses his courageous, believable characters to tell a thought-provoking story of the importance of a free press at a time when a country and justice system are in upheaval. And, the author’s note at the end of the book is a must-read.

The Good Cop by Peter Steiner. Severn House, 2019. ISBN 9780727889430 (hardcover), 188p.

*****
FTC Full Disclosure – I received the book to review for a journal.