Introduction

Kiran Mendelsohn is a cosmopolitan. He speaks fluent English without an accent and very good Russian. His Japanese may be a little rough, but even in Kyoto he would never get lost. Although he lives and works in Berlin, it is not only his profession but also his entire outlook on life that constantly draws him to new regions and cultures – in Germany, Europe and around the world. This is how he grew up, which is why he chose a job with a global network.

As a contact group for international investigations, he and his team encounter adversaries from all areas of crime. He hunts down private and professional criminals – from murderers and fraudsters of all kinds to organised gangs and ideological and political criminals, which often brings him into contact or conflict with other agencies.

However, his life is neither that of a glamorous special agent nor is it confined to a typical neighbourhood. Kiran Mendelsohn’s world is set in the reality of the Federal Criminal Police Office, with all its complexities but also, and just as importantly, with all the down-to-earthness that comes with fighting international crime. Even though some cases are explosive and the opponents are often illustrious, Kiran’s everyday working life is characterised by a consistent normality, despite his diverse experiences and sometimes crazy situations.

Kiran’s team combines youthful dynamism with experience, rough edges with professionalism. The protagonists not only have to travel all over Germany, but often also solve their cases abroad. There, they have to engage with their local colleagues and deal with cultural and social conditions as well as with a wide variety of criminal mentalities.

Setting

The story begins in Berlin, where the protagonist Kiran Mendelsohn and his team work as consultants and profilers in the field of international crime coordination for the Federal Criminal Police Office. He supports local criminal investigation departments and special commissions throughout Germany and colleagues abroad in cases involving German nationals. Kiran is also a professor of case analysis and psychology at the BKA Academy in Wiesbaden.

Kiran and his team are called in whenever investigations extend to other federal states (or other countries) and coordinated action with institutions at federal level is required. He provides advice in cases of both a psychological and criminal nature. His perfect command of English and Russian makes him the ideal liaison officer and advisor to international teams.

His private lifestyle, the loft where he lives, his Japanese-influenced way of thinking and, above all, the English bistro Lloyd’s on the ground floor of his apartment building and the characters who frequent it shape the local setting in relation to Kiran’s philosophy.

At Lloyd’s, home port for people from all walks of life, social cohesion is just as firmly established as the sometimes cynical world view of the bistro’s regulars. A haven of peace and humorous analysis of life, it is the perfect place to ponder, reflect and debate the beautiful and the terrible over beer, whisky or wine, accompanied by music that always suits the mood. But there is never a shortage of the necessary dash of black, sarcastic humour.

The Protagonist – Kiran Mendelsohn

Kiran lives in a converted loft on the top floor of a building on Paul-Lincke Ufer in Kreuzberg. Meticulously furnished and organised, it is both a temple and a refuge. From here, he ventures out into the harsh reality of the society that surrounds his perfect world. He loves Japanese food, both healthy and gourmet cuisine. In music, he enjoys everything recorded by perfection-driven musicians with the highest level of craftsmanship. He dresses in a timeless and casually elegant style, without ever standing out with accessories or trendy brands.

Kiran (the name comes from Sanskrit and means ray of light) is a child of the 70s and 80s. His family environment is strongly oriented towards art and culture, which means that he absorbed a good dose of psychological and sociological debates with his mother’s milk. His parents, who are wealthy and therefore quite free in their decisions, are active in the Frankfurt art scene, which has shaped him from an early age. To their chagrin, however, their son is quite different from the anarchic brats of their friends and colleagues. He is not particularly good at painting, nor does he want to learn an instrument; he prefers to listen to records. He finds concerts loud and exhausting, and when he goes to the ballet, he falls fast asleep after five minutes. The only discipline in which he shows creativity is cooking, where he mixes things up in the kitchen to his heart’s content and even eats the most absurd creations of his parents, who cook more for visual appeal.

Young Kiran wants one thing above all else: peace and quiet. So his parents leave him to his only love, books. He learns to read so early that comics quickly bore him. After devouring the entire children’s section of the city library, he discovers his future passion for crime stories. At the age of nine, a foreign-looking man enters his life: Mr Mifune lives in a loft studio opposite Kiran’s flat, which he has converted into an aikido dojo, and befriends the Mendelsohn family. In return for helping with the renovation, he offers to look after little Kiran in the afternoons.

This completely changes Kiran’s life. Gone are the days when he can spend all day poring over his books, because the programme at the dojo is full: helping in the kitchen, lunch, homework, looking after Mr Mifune’s beloved plants and trees. While tending to the bonsai trees, he watches the afternoon aikido lessons with fascination. Given his aversion to brute force, he is deeply impressed by a discipline based solely on defence and driven by the same qualities that have always distinguished him: calmness and coordination. He immediately realises that he must learn this technique. After much pleading, he becomes a student of this discipline and Mifune Saito his teacher.

Kiran thus passes through school and puberty in a fairly uneventful manner. When he finally graduates from high school, he decides, to the horror of his parents, to pursue a career closely related to his hobby, criminology. His declared goal is to join the Federal Criminal Police. To this end, he first completes his training at the Federal Criminal Police Academy. Having already visited the United States as a student and received a high school scholarship, he spends two years at the FBI Academy in Quantico studying behavioural science and special training on the recommendation of his instructor and mentor Horst Roellinghoff, before returning to Germany to study and work at the BKA.

Of course, even someone as outwardly calm as Kiran Mendelsohn has deep dark sides. His psychological issues include loss of control, allowing himself to feel deeper emotions (including towards people who invade his privacy) and confrontation with brutal violence. Kiran’s attempt to come to terms with his abilities in this area is a recurring theme throughout the novels. His training at the FBI ends with a traumatic experience. This shock, which confronts him completely unprepared with the harsh reality of crime, brings his dreams to an abrupt end. Only at the urging of his mentor does he decide to spend a year in a Japanese monastery to get his life back on track and perhaps find the strength to pursue his chosen career after all.

As a result, Kiran struggles with the question of whether a BKA specialist like him can really retreat completely to the theoretical level if he wants to make a difference in this profession. It is the friendship that develops with his new partner Bolko Blohm, who, with his unconventional and flippant manner, is a completely different person in every respect. Both are united by the professionalism with which they do their jobs. The order they bring to the chaos of their cases and the lessons they learn from them form the quintessence of their existence.

The Mendelsohn Crime Series – Characters

The Partner – Bolko Blohm

Born and bred in Hamburg and recruited by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in Berlin from the Hamburg State Criminal Police Office (LKA). Extroverted, slightly chaotic, as charming as he is sarcastic, quick-witted and overly hasty in everything he does.

He is unshaven out of conviction, usually wears jeans and dirty shirts, an old leather jacket and heavy shoes. More of a fan of junk and convenience food, he lives in a cosy one-room flat with no kitchen, but with a huge fridge and freezer and an extremely versatile microwave next to the sofa bed. His altar is the mother of all stereo systems from the Scottish company Linn and the monstrous speakers are his own design. The entire wall is a single record shelf, because as a disciple of handmade blues and rock, he despises the CD medium with a passion. He drives a perfectly preserved black Jaguar XLS, which hides a high-performance engine under the bonnet. The boot is non-existent, as it is occupied by the power amplifier and bass speaker for the stereo system.

His unorthodox investigative methods make him very successful, but also mean he is under constant scrutiny from his superiors. Nevertheless, he is a meticulous and professional investigator. This, combined with his life experience, which could be described as ‘street-wise’, brings him to the attention of the head of the international department of the BKA.

The Boss: Birte Halbach

Heads the international investigation department of the BKA Berlin. A tomboyish and ruthlessly direct woman in her fifties, dynamic and tough as nails. She asserts herself without any difficulty in the male-dominated BKA and runs her department with the rustic authority of a sergeant and the overview of a family patriarch with both feet firmly planted on the ground. She is tough on her team, but defends them tooth and nail against outsiders and, above all, against authority figures both inside and outside the BKA. This is where her nickname, Mother Courage, comes from.

The Team

Enzo Moretti, an intelligent and handsome chief inspector with many hidden qualities and a perfect network within the Federal Criminal Police Office and the outside world. His hot-blooded Italian heritage only comes to the fore when he receives a food delivery from one of his countless relatives, watches an Inter Milan match or goes undercover playing the classic southern European. Otherwise, he is an accomplished, experienced and focused investigator.

Alenka Motte: Detective and the team’s technician, whose network and IT skills would make many of the BKA’s computer scientists green with envy. She is ascetically slim, well-trained and blessed with a rather masculine beauty. Despite her tendency to be a loner, she nevertheless develops into a good team player who can be charming when absolutely necessary. She knows and respects Kiran from her time at the academy, which is why she is also very knowledgeable in psychology and criminal profiling.

BFF and Attourney General: Eleonore Roellinghoff

In her late forties, attractive, intelligent, determined and utterly honest. Birte Halbach is an ambitious fighter in a male-dominated professional world. Her close friendship with Kiran dates back to his training and her studies: she is the daughter of his instructor at the BKA Academy. Both share a penchant for independence and complete control over their personal lives.

The Mentor: Horst Roellinghoff

A moustachioed pipe smoker, jazz lover and retired instructor at the BKA Academy. An old-school veteran and one of the BKA’s first employees, he belongs to the Herold generation and is therefore a staunch advocate of modern, networked investigation methods and realistic training. He is Kiran’s discoverer and mentor, having taught him all the intricacies of investigative work as well as a wide range of active field techniques. Since Kiran’s traumatic departure from the FBI, his relationship with his protégé has suffered somewhat, but now that Kiran is back in the field, things are changing again.

The Pub Landlord – Nestor Lloyd

A Brit from Merseyside, gruff, taciturn and a restaurateur with heart and soul. Loves his wife, Liverpool FC and Berlin (in that order). Namesake, bar manager and head chef at Lloyd’s, Kiran’s local pub on the ground floor of his home on Paul-Lincke Ufer. Wears horribly patterned shirts hanging out of his trousers and equally hideous ties for every occasion. After his battalion was disbanded in Berlin, he decided to stay in the city and realise his dream of running a restaurant: a pub with excellent food and a décor that reflects all the eccentricities of his anarchic taste. Nestor’s cooking is just as unpredictable, serving whatever takes his fancy, but always of the highest standard. That’s why there’s no menu; Nestor decides and tells his guests at the table what he’s offering them – which, depending on how much he likes them, can be little to nothing. He despises restaurant critics and the entire gourmet rabble in their wake, which earns him dubious reviews and a sometimes peculiar clientele.

The Friend and Regular: Alistair Campbell

A Scotsman who also ended up in Berlin, where he can enjoy culinary delights more than at home in the Highlands. Loves fine food and is an excellent wine and Whysky connoisseur. As a committed pensioner, he hates any kind of exercise except his annual salmon fishing trip to Alaska. He considers football a girls’ sport – he is a rugby veteran through and through. He constantly changes his political views, which he modifies depending on who he is talking to in order to draw them out of their shell. The only exception is his intense dislike of all US Democrats. Since his time in Hong Kong, where he rose to become a major entrepreneur within a few years, he has been an expert in career and investment matters. He is constantly engaged in a loving and sometimes bitter clinch with Nestor to keep the old feud between the Scots and the English alive. In addition to rude jokes, he often and gladly quotes from the only important book ever written: How the Scots invented the world – The true story of how Western Europe’s poorest nation created our world and everything in it.