Death of a Siren
Do sirens sing intentionally to trap sailors, or do they sing because it is their nature to sing?
The year is 1938. War is soon to break out in Europe and the body of a beautiful German baroness is found, with a hatchet planted in her head, in the Galapagos Islands, seven hundred miles off Ecuador. Castaway Fred Freiman, a German-American, New York cop on the run from both the NYPD and the mob, finds the body and then finds himself trapped into identifying the murderer or murderers as world and local intrigues and personal passions swirl around him. Early on he meets and falls madly in love with Ana de Guzmán, a young, very wealthy and very clever Ecuadorian woman who collaborates very actively in solving the tangled mysteries.
The suspects are many, ranging from colorful recent German and Norwegian settlers to shady Americans to an elusive German believed to be an SS officer as well as to a seemingly insane German and finally to the Ecuadorians themselves. Motives and relationships are equally wide-ranging and shadowy while every second of the drama is played out in the edge-of-the world enchantment that the Galapagos do, in fact, possess.
" A deftly crafted and compelling read from beginning to end, "Death of a Siren" showcases author William Schall as a master of the genre" - The Midwest Book Review