This book is set in Germany it jumps between the present day and the early 1980s
Jesse is a Doctor he arrives at his ex wifes Sandra house she is murdered and his daughter Isa is missing.
Jules a friend of Sandra thinks Jesse kiiled her.
This sparks a bit of a wild goose chase, Jesse with a reluctant Jules heads to the old Childrens home that Jesse and Sandra grew up in.
The old Headmaster Arthur is missing he has been kidnapped along with Isa.
The book jumps back and forth explains who Jesse arrived at the childrens home, his Mother was murdered and his Dad was an old horrible Drunk.
Some of the original boys from the time Jesse was at the school are still living nearby, two of them turn up dead.

There were 2 major issues going on, The first one is the Child for sale that is still going on its arranged now by Richard who is Arthurs son.
The second one is Jesse had an evil twin brother Raphael who managed to swap lives with him when he was a youngster, he has kidnapped Isa and wants her for himself.
Jesse manages to rescue Isa and kill Raphael.

Jesse, Isa and Jules are going to be together by the end of the book.

Very far fetched silly book. ( )

I was intitially very excited to read this book, it sounded interesting and there was some roomy about the cover that I thought made it look really cool. Another reason I chose the 'home sick' was because Mark Raabe runs a production company, and I felt it may end up screen. From the prologue I was hooked, the scene was set well, and the characters were believable, though other the following chapters my interest faded and it felt like just another thriller. It was a good book bud I feel that it could have done more to stand out from other books of the same genre, that is why I have only rated it three stars. I would like to see it on the screen though, 85 definitely has the suspense and edge for it. ( )

Jesse and Sandra are divorced, with an eight-year-old daughter, Isa, who lives with her mother but has regular contact with her father. When Jesse calls at the Berlin apartment his ex-wife shares with her new boyfriend, he discovers that she has been murdered and Isa has been kidnapped. Her abductor has left a message, written on the child’s bedroom wall in large, red spidery capitals: “YOU DON’T DESERVE HER”. Who has abducted her, and why? Jesse soon realises that the answers lie in his past but, following an accident when he was thirteen, his memories of the past are almost non-existent, other than frightening fragments which appear in recurring, horrific nightmares. However, he knows that, whatever the strength of his emotional reluctance to do so, he must now confront his past if he is to find and rescue the daughter he adores.
Although Jesse is now a successful paediatrician, his childhood was very disturbed and traumatic. He and Sandra had met when they were both in care in a children’s home in Bavaria, where they had felt an immediate, although not always straightforward, attraction to each other. Life in the children’s home was frequently harsh and brutal and the story switches between the 1980s and 2013, following the same group of characters and gradually exposing the backstory which led to the murder and abduction.
This story is described as “a fast paced and addictive thriller ….” but, for this reader, it didn’t live up to this promise. I found it far too repetitive and, although I did manage to resist the temptation to do so, I feel I could easily have skipped sections without losing much of the sense of the developing plot. In fact, I wasn’t too far into the story before I had a good idea how the plot would develop, with the eventual “twist” coming as no surprise – maybe I have been reading too many books in this genre!
Other than with the delightful Isa, I found it difficult to feel any sense of engagement with any of the characters, all of whom seemed rather one-dimensional and unconvincing. I found myself not caring about what happened to any of them, even though some of their experiences were truly horrific and so should have triggered some sort of an emotional response from me. Also, the areas of Germany in which the story is set are ones I know well and yet I got no real sense of them, other than the difficulties of driving in snowy and icy conditions!
This story has been translated and so it is hard to know whether my difficulties with the style has anything to do with this. Without being able to read the German original this is an impossible question for me to answer, but what I am aware of is that there were several occasions when I found that the flow of the story felt rather laboured, and the syntax rather strange and stilted. There were also numerous typographical errors which should have been corrected at the proof reading stage but, as they remained, were another cause of irritation.
With thanks to the publisher and Readers First for an ARC of this story in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Zum Inhalt:

Jesse Berg lebt in Berlin und arbeitet erfolgreich im Krankenhaus als Kinderarzt. Sein Privatleben sieht allerdings weniger rosig aus. Er ist frisch geschieden und sieht deshalb seine kleine Tochter Isa seltener als ihm lieb ist. Doch dann bricht seine Vergangenheit, die er am liebsten vergessen würde, mit aller Macht über ihn hinein: Seine Exfrau Sandra wird ermordet und Isa entführt. Die Nachricht, die der Täter für Jesse hinterlässt, führt diesen in die Berge, ins Kinderheim Adlershof: die Hölle seiner Jugend. Und gemeinsam mit der Psychologin Jule, einer Freundin von Sandra, macht er sich auf den Weg nach Garmisch Partenkirchen.
Jesse hat teilweise nur verschwommene Erinnerungen an die Zeit, die er im Heim verbracht hat. Aber es leben immer noch Menschen dort, die er nur zu gut kennt. Und er kommt dem Geheimnis, das ihn damals fast das Leben gekostet hat, immer näher. Doch dann gibt es noch mehr Opfer, und Jesse und Jule geraten auf der Suche nach Isa in höchste Lebensgefahr.

Meine Meinung:

Das Buch ist unterteilt in zwei Erzählstränge: Der eine spielt in der Gegenwart und schildert die aktuellen Geschehnisse und die Suche nach Isa. Im zweiten geht es um die Ereignisse, die sich damals im Adlershof zugetragen haben. Der Autor wechselt beständig zwischen diesen beiden Zeitebenen, was meines Empfinden nach die Dynamik des Buches sehr erhöht. Immer wenn es gerade richtig spannend wird, wechselt der Autor wieder die Perspektive, so dass es ständig kleine Cliffhänger gibt.

Die Geschichte finde ich wirklich gut konstruiert, auch wenn ich nach ca. zwei Dritteln des Buches geahnt habe, was damals wirklich passiert ist. Und das Ganze wird am Schluss stimmig und logisch aufgelöst.

Ein bisschen indifferent bleibt der Protagonist Jesse. Er ist nicht wirklich ein Sympathieträger, und irgendwie konnte ich nicht so richtig warm mit ihm werden. Das mag daran liegen, dass es den Jesse von damals und den von heute gibt, die doch so unterschiedlich scheinen. Als Leser weiß man nicht so recht, woran man mit Jesse wirklich ist. Aber das ist natürlich der Geschichte geschuldet, da das ja gerade die Crux ist. Trotzdem hätte ich mir Jesse etwas positiver und empathischer gewünscht, um mich besser mit ihm identifizieren zu können. Die heimlichen Helden für mich sind jedoch der alte Artur Messner und die kleine Isa, die ein tolles Team ergeben.

Gelungen hingegen finde ich den Titel des Buches: HEIMWEH. Wegen der Doppeldeutigkeit des Begriffs, die mir bisher noch nie so in den Sinn gekommen ist. Dass „Heim“ auch sehr „weh“ tun kann, kann wohl niemand nachempfinden, der nicht selbst in einem aufgewachsen ist.

Auch das Cover gefällt mir gut, da es mich an einen Raum erinnert, in dem man jemanden gefangen hält, was wiederum sehr gut zum Inhalt passt.

Fazit:
Ein wirklich gelungenes und spannendes Buch, das mit einem etwas sympathischeren Protagonisten noch besser geworden wäre. ( )