This is the second in the author's murder mystery trilogy set in the ruins of post-WWII Hamburg, featuring Chief Inspector Stave. I loved the first novel in this series, but wasn't so keen on this. The reason for the horrible murders of a number of youngsters didn't seem plausible and the endless details of the complicated smuggling plot I found frankly rather dull. Stave has an interesting backdrop - an anti-Nazi whose view of the Allied liberators is tempered with the tragic loss of his wife Margarethe in a British bombing raid, and whose son Karl was an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth who ended up in the Gulag. In trying to lay hands on the perpetrator of the murders, an exasperated public prosecutor Ehrlich remarks ruefully that "not so long ago it was less of an administrative task to annihilate an entire race than it is now to bring one man to trial". I was waiting for a twist at the end when Stave was chasing the then unidentified culprit, but there was none. Overall, I found this somewhat disappointing compared to The Murderer in Ruins. ( )