Uwe Timm Rot (Red) Kiepenheuer & Witsch, August 2001. 430pp. ISBN 3-462-03023-X The opening scene is a car crash in a busy Berlin street, which Thomas, the narrator, observes from above. As he watches the people below him scurrying about, sending for the ambulance and pulling the driver out of the wreckage, he revisits scenes from his life. A jazz pianist and critic, Thomas is writing a book on the colour red, but earns his living giving funeral orations. As the deceased are mostly strangers to him he must find out from their relatives and friends what to say, and sometimes also indulge in a bit of discreet detective work. This is particularly the case with a certain Aschenberger, who has requested in his will that Thomas should speak at his funeral. Thomas discovers that he knew Aschenberger under another name. Both were communists in their youth, distributed leaflets against the bombing in Vietnam and took part in demonstrations - another aspect of 'red'. Now divorced and in his mid-fifties, Thomas is in the middle of an affair with Iris, thirty years younger than himself, who belongs to a depoliticised generation. A ready listener to his thoughts, she discovers from him the ideals and commitment, the disillusion and corruption, of the old radical left. Just before the car accident, Thomas is warned of a packet of explosives in his briefcase. They belonged, it is suggested, to Aschenberger, who had revised the views he formerly held against violence, and had intended to use them himself to blow up the Victory Monument. In a stream-of conscious unravelling, Thomas imagines that he is flying amid the debris alongside the column's angel. He has, in short, died in the car crash, and is composing his own funeral oration. Here is an explosion of ideas to match the fragments of flying masonry, with many strong moments, not least those concerned with Thomas's fears of ageing and impotence, of terminal illness, and his premonition of death. Set against the changing face of German politics, this can also be read as an intriguing guide to modern Berlin.