"When it comes to crime writing Eckert is right on top of the heap."
(Emsdettener Volkszeitung)
Annas Erbe - Anna´s Legacy
262 pages, published by Grafit, Dortmund, in 1995
When parts of a body are found on a dump near Düsseldorf, Karl Thann, a 26-year-old ambitious superintendent becomes head of investigations in a case of homicide for the first time. He finds out that the man who was killed is Eich, a former prisoner who was arrested for killing his girlfriend Anna Korfmacher 25 years ago. Eich was released only one week before his death and has always denied his guilt. People who knew him are telling Thann that Eich wanted to prove his innocence.
Thann meets the 27-year-old lawyer´s assistant Eva. She is Anna Korfmacher´s daughter and is therefore very much interested in the case. Eva wants to know whether members of her former family are alive and what kind of person her mother actually was.
Because of his rude methods Thann's boss Bollmann withdraws Thann from the case. Thann is supposed to work for the vice squad but secretly he continues to work on the Eich case. He is sure that Anna´s murderer also killed Eich. In finding him Thann hopes to prove that he is a better cop than Bollman is.
Eva helps Thann and they both fall in love with each other. They learn more about Anna and her wild life in the time of student protests in 1970.
When Thann finally discovers that a colleague killed Eich by order of Bollman, who is a former lover of Anna, Thann turns from an investigator into a refugee.
Together with Eva he flees to his mother into the countryside. Here he learns the truth about his own past and the secret of his descent …
Read what the press writes about Horst Eckert´s novels