Finstere Seelen - Gloomy Souls

411 pages, published by Grafit, Dortmund, in1999

Young superintendent Thilo Becker, 27, works at the police station in the old part of Düsseldorf, famous for its violence and corruption. Hilo wants to move to the homicide squad where his father worked in former times.
After an unusual break of eleven years an unknown psychopath kills again. Benedikt "Ben" Engel, 40, head of the homicide squad now, finds the victim, a young woman, slaughtered in such a way that Ben becomes more and more obsessed by the case.
So does Thilo. One of the killer´s victims - eleven years ago - was Christa, a neighbour of Thilo´s family. She was a second mother to him and Thilo´s father, at that time superintendent, worked on the case but could not solve it.
Ben needs help and Thilo is promoted to the head quarters to work with Ben on the homicide case.
When Ben compares the new case with the old ones, he suspects that onte of the three woman is not the victim of the psychopath but of a second killer who imitates the modus operandi to lead the police astray. Ben has to hunt two murderers - a race against the time.
Thilo realizes that his own family is involved in the crime. The case becomes a nightmare for him …

The novel has been translated into Czech language.

Read what the press writes about Horst Eckert´s novels. 

"Masterly Eckert escapes from the danger of shipwrecking on the surface and keeps his characters from the fate of becoming an inanimate cliché."
(Kölner Illustrierte)