Christian v. Ditfurth Mit Blindheit geschlagen Stachelmanns zweiter Fall (Can't See For Looking: Stachelmann's Second Case) Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, August 2004. 416 pp. ISBN 3-462-03416-2 Josef Maria Stachelmann, of Hamburg University, is a recent arrival on the crime novel scene. In his first 'case', published in Germany last year, he was embroiled in matters dating back to the Third Reich. Now in his second investigation the academic sleuth is caught up in the legacy of the GDR and the Stasi - a fertile ground for plots and counter-plots. Add to that a hero who has a habit of tangling with murderers, and a knack for getting himself out of his scrapes only just in the nick of time, and you have a thrilling mix. As this story opens, our hero is not in the best of spirits. He has just buried his father, he can't seem to finish his professorial thesis, his love life is in a mess. To cap it all, he is due to attend a reception in honour of a newly-arrived colleague, Wolf Griesbach, from the Free University of Berlin, who may well prove a professional threat. But while Stachelmann is drowning his sorrows in a bar near the campus, who should come in but his rival's wife Ines, a sexy lady who very soon has him in bed. The plot now gathers both complexity and speed. Griesbach, who has gone back to Berlin on undisclosed business, fails to reappear. Ines begs Stachelmann to find out what has become of him. Stachelmann obligingly travels to Berlin, learns a few things about Griesbach's activities in the old GDR, then, on returning to his own flat in Lübeck, opens the boot of his car and in it finds the wanted man's corpse. Belatedly he twigs that Ines has used him as a fall-guy. Meanwhile the Lübeck police and the actual murderer are both after him, and by the time the latter confronts him in the woods around Hamburg he is in a very tight spot indeed. This is another gripping page turner from Christian v. Ditfurth. Stachelmann's latest brush with the past will keep you guessing until the end.