Aufgeputscht - Incited

412 pages, published by Grafit, Dortmund in 1997

"Marlowe"-award by the German Raymond-Chandler-Society (best German crime novel of the year), nominated for the "Friedrich-Glauser"-award (same category)

Karl Thann, now 28, has a new job in the police head quarter. He solves cases of corruption in the police staff.
Benedikt Engel, 38, is investigating a new case of homiced: A presumed drug dealer was found dead in a forest near Düsseldorf.
The third main character is superintendent Rolf Nowak, 42. Three months ago he killed a man by mistake in a night club owned by Nowak´s old friend Jochen Wiegandt. Nowak´s second, but non-legal job was to be a guard to Wiegandt. To stand the double task - policeman in daytime, body guard at night - he took speed pills. After the fatal shooting he has quitted both, the pills and the second job. Brauning, Engel´s boss in the homiced squad, helped Nowak to make the shooting look like self-defence, but Nowak suffers from his bad conscience.
In a raid againt gambling, Nowak embezzles money to give it to Fiona, the daughter of his victim. He knows that he will never be able to undo his mistake, but he wants to help Fiona as much as he can.
Karl Thann finds the head of the drug squad guilty of working for an important drug dealer. The dealers were pushed back by an unknown group. Is it the one who killed the victim in the case Engel is investigating?
Nowak gets blackmailed by the people who supplied him with speed pills in former times. Engel gets information about Nowak´s past and suspects the colleague of being involved with the unknown dealer gang. Thann's duty is to put Nowak under surveillance.
Nowak tries to find the guys that are blackmailing him, but they dissapeared. Karla Wiegandt, his old friend´s wife asks him to search for a young woman who snooped around in the night club. Nowak realizes that it was Fiona, the daughter of his victim. He finds apartment  being rummaged through. Nowak is in fear that Fiona might be in danger. He finds her in a discotheque and takes her to his apartment.
Thann follows Nowak. He recognizes another car following Nowak, too. Who else is interested in what this guy is doing?
Engel finds the factory where a new kind of drug is produced. It is run by a chemist whose son is one of the men blackmailing Nowak.
Step by step the circle closes, but before the three cops are able to work together to solve the connected cases, it is too late for the one of them ...

The novel has been translated into Czech language.

In 1998 it was awarded the Marlowe-Prize

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

 

"Eckert's novels belong to the kind of books which you read in one go, gnawing your finger nails and wolfing down a whole case of chocolates."
(Coolibri)