The Quiet Twin: A Novel
*Starred Review* When the police show up to investigate the corpse in an apartment courtyard, they immediately tug on his hair to make sure it is not a wig. In the endlessly deceptive world Vyleta unfolds, such skepticism about appearances is essential. And no one needs such skepticism more than Herr Doktor Anton Beer, the novel’s protagonist. Accustomed to dealing with the hidden illnesses lurking in the seemingly healthy and the feigned sicknesses of malingerers, this cagy physician unexpectedly finds himself prying for clues revealing who has recently butchered a local professor’s dog and, perhaps with the same knife, also murdered four humans.Through Beer’s sharp eyes, readers peer through peepholes, stare through parted curtains, catch fugitive images in mirrors, and scan stairwells, all the while assessing the inscrutable features of the residents of a Viennese apartment complex in 1939: a paralyzed woman shrouded in mysterious secrecy; her twin, a stealthy mime; a bookish Japanese trumpet player; a reclusive widow; an attractive hypochondriac; a drunken janitor. As Vyleta weaves his taut narrative, readers strive with Beer for that acuteness of vision necessary to anticipate and explain the ominous twists of events played out in the shadow of Nazi fanaticism. Dark and disturbing, a novel of rare sophistication. --Bryce Christensen