Postmark Berlin

By Anne Emery

ECW Press     2020

376 pages     Mystery

In the eleventh entry of Anne Emery’s award-winning series, “Father Brennan Burke is coming off a rough stint in Belfast and he's been trying to obliterate those memories with drink ever since. His troubles intensify when the body of one of his parishioners washes up on the beach in Halifax. 

Meika Keller came to Canada after escaping through the Berlin Wall. Now a Canadian military officer is charged with her murder. Defense lawyer Monty Collins argues that her death was suicide. That's the last thing Father Burke wants to hear. Guilty of neglecting his duties as a priest when Meika needed him most, Brennan feels compelled to uncover whatever prompted her cry for help and led to her death.

The story takes us from the historic Navy town of Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the history-laden city of Berlin, as Brennan and his brother Terry head to Germany in search of answers. And while Brennan is determined to find out what accounted for Meika's death, nothing could have prepared him for the events that unfold. And in the midst of all this, Brennan and Monty must deal with conflicts between the two of them, which arose out of their time in Belfast and have yet to be resolved. “

One of the reasons I like to read mysteries is because of the details regarding the setting, and definitely this is the case with Postmark Berlin. We learn a lot about Halifax, Berlin, and Leipzig, as Father Burke travels around attempting to solve who may have murdered Meika. Or was it suicide? 

The reader feels comfortable enough with Father Burke to call him Brennan, and I found Brennan to be a very relatable character, filled with flaws but with an immense number of redeemable characteristics. He is responding to what he feels is his failure to help Meika, and his guilt is palpable.

I really knew nothing about East Berlin during its Communist days, nor did I know anything about the Stasi, the East German secret police. Brennan learns a lot as well as he travels, seeking information about Meika as a way of assuaging his guilt. Nothing is as simple as it looks, as Brennan soon discovers, particularly because he is relying on a postcard that Meika has received with a postmark of Berlin and a picture of Stasi headquarters. Who sent it to Meika? Why?

I had no trouble dropping into the lives of Brennan, his brothers, and his detecting partner, Monty, even though this was their eleventh outing together. Sometimes mystery novels spend too much time trying to catch the reader up on what happened before; I felt that Emery did a good job of keeping the reader updated. However, I did get lost in lots and lots of details. Too many details. In fact, I almost got bogged down in details that did not move the plot forward. The Kirkus reviewer says, “Sympathetic characters, a complex plot, and a slew of details of questionable relevance.” My feelings exactly.

Anne Emery’s website.