“The Killing Strip”

Today I want to present you a slightly different book out of our library. The GDR is topic in it, too, but in another form as usually. The book, I want to present to you, is the novel “The Killing Strip”, written by Anthony Underhill in 2010.

The title of the book recalls the inner-German border and the Berlin Wall, and of course, the Wall plays a role in the novel. But this historical period is not the only which is important for the story Underhill narrates. The Nazi past of Berlin and the time after the Second World War in the city is also part of the story.

The main narrative is about a young man who enters Berlin’s alternative scene after he got to know a Lebanese singer. When the people close to the singer start to die or disappear, the young man realizes that her love might come at a terrible cost. The “Killing Strip” gets here a totally different meaning.

The tale of the young man is intertwined with two persons who are involved in Berlin’s past and the area around the killing strip. On the one hand there is a border guard writing love letters to his beloved on the other side of the Wall and the. On the other hand there is a young girl hiding from vengeful Soviet soldiers after the end of the World War II and the fall of Nazi Berlin.

The novel “The Killing Strip” tells a story about Berlin, the different people who lived and live in it, and the difficult past of the city. It`s a story about Berlin in all its’ facets, about its’ beauty but also its’ ugly face.

“The Killing Strip” was published by Matador in 2010. The ISBN is 978-184-876-330-2. It is the second book of Anthony Underhill.