Germany set thriller – In the Dark Andreas Pfluger

Submitted: 4th January 2019

A blind special agent, a title written in Braille

Today is World Braille Day and it’s a good time to celebrate the way people with sight problems can communicate freely. Created of course by Louis Braille, who remains an inspiration, there aren’t that many novels which have blind characters in them.

So, when I discovered In the Dark by Andreas Pfluger, I was very interested to read it. The title in Braille caught my eye and my interest. I wasn’t disappointed with anything inside either! Great plot, fascinating characters and a world I would never have thought about. How do you live day to day with no sight never mind working as a special agent. I admit I was ignorant to many of the things I read.

BookTrail Travel to In the Dark Locations

Notice the title written in Braille

BookTrail Travel to In the Dark Locations

Bookreview

What a fascinating premise for a crime novel and police procedural. A special agent blinded by a shooting on duty. She returns to work and is called to Berlin where a criminal in the local jail has asked to speak to her and her alone. The prisoner in question has just murdered the prison pshycolotgist and knows Aaron from the past…just how we don’t know yet.

Oh this was good. Fascinating on so many levels. How would you work in such a demanding job if you are blind? Does society treat and look upon blind people differently to others? How do they treat them? I found out a lot in this novel. How you navigate a city, how you work out which direction you are going in a car, how to cross a street? The mudane, everyday things we do without thinking, if we can see.

There were a lot of fascinating information in the novel (as well as a great police procedural and thrilling plot I should add!) This was enhanced by the very fact that the lead character showed us her world. Perhaps the most poignant moments were when she listed the things she liked such as ‘the rustle of leaves, birds singing etc. The noise of a pencil on a piece of paper…how often do we as sighted people not even give these things a thought?

BookTrail Travel to In the Dark Locations

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect was the discovery of how blind people use a sonar system similar to animals to navigate their world. I did wonder but the author clearly explains this in her author note. It’s very clever and I had no idea! It’s amazing how the loss of one sense can provoke a new one.

There was a lot of humour too. Aaron explains how she hates it when she stops in a street and people come rushing to help, assuming she wants to cross the road. Then she remains stranded on the other side of the street in a strange place with new noises. Now she’s lost when she wasn’t before. Then when she forgets there is coffee in her fold up table on the plane. It spills onto the man sitting next to her, who shouts ‘Are you blind?’. “Yes”. she answers.

I don’t want to avoid mentioning the plot – this was gripping and slightly gory. The fact the prisoner commits murder inside and kills an official was grim. He might be locked up but he controls a lot of the outside, a lot of people’s memories and nightmares.

Recommended.