The Third Reich

The Third Reich

Summary

War-games champion Udo Berger is finally on holiday.

Travelling to the Costa Brava with his long-ignored girlfriend, Ingeborg, there they meet another vacationing German couple, Charly and Hanna, and a band of shady locals. They have fun, see the sights, relax. Then, late one night, Charly disappears without a trace.

Desperate to solve the mystery, Udo refuses to leave, even after Ingeborg returns home. Increasingly frightened, the situation slips beyond his grasp and Udo suddenly realizes that the consequences of this ‘game’ are much more serious than he ever imagined.

TRANSLATED BY NATASHA WIMMER

‘Capering, weird, rascally and short... The Third Reich is giddily funny, but it is also prickly and bizarre enough to count among Bolaño’s first-rate efforts’ The Economist

‘A mesmerizing tale: sleek, linear, easily digested, beautifully translated… Classic Bolaño’ Washington Post

Reviews

  • Bolaño is a master of atmosphere
    The Wall Street Journal

About the author

Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolaño was born in Santiago, Chile in 1953 and died in Catalonia in 2003. He was widely regarded as the essential Latin American writer of our age. He was best known for his novels (including The Savage Detectives, which won a number of prestigious literary awards, Nocturno de Chile, translated as By Night in Chile, and 2666, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award) and his short stories, first published in English in Last Evenings on Earth.
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