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In the apparent idyll of the Ruhr area, a nightmare unfolds: When the police report several missing people and human remains turn up, a feverish hunt for an unscrupulous perpetrator begins. During their investigation, Daniel Berger and his team, investigators at the Bochum criminal police, come across a bloody trail that leads from a seemingly harmless butcher shop to a shady fitness studio. But what begins as routine investigative work turns out to be a harrowing series of betrayal, violence and madness. Behind the facade of everyday places and people lie shocking secrets that push even the most experienced police officers to their limits. As the team tries to shed light on the mystery, events unfold rapidly: cannibalism, murder and the unstoppable fall from grace of people caught in a quagmire of guilt and revenge keep readers on the edge of their seats. With The Cannibals of Bochum, Ralf Kronenburg tells a dark story about the depths of the human soul, set in a region that is known equally for its down-to-earth nature as for its hidden shadows. A captivating and harrowing crime novel that gets under your skin until the last page.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Title: The cannibals of Bochum
Author: Ralf Kronenburg
Biography:
Ralf Kronenburg, born on February 3, 1972 in Bochum, is a German author and former journalist who is best known for his dark and gripping crime novels. His stories are characterized by an oppressive atmosphere, psychological depth and detailed depictions of the Ruhr region. With his novel The Cannibals of Bochumhe has finally secured a firm place for himself in the German crime fiction landscape.
Fearly years and career
Kronenburg grew up in Bochum, in an area he later described as a “melting pot of industry and humanity.” His father was a locksmith in one of the last active mines in the region, while his mother worked as a saleswoman in a small bakery. Ralf showed a passion for writing from an early age, inspired by theStories from his grandfather, who told of the tough but warm-hearted people in the Ruhr area.
After graduating from high school, Kronenburg studied journalism and German at the University of Dortmund. He then began a career as a journalist and worked for regional daily newspapers and specialist magazines. During this time, he developed his unique style, which allows him to interweave precise observations with exciting stories.
The Step to Writing
The transition from journalism to fiction took place gradually. Kronenburg began to publish short stories, often set in the milieu of his hometown. He made his literary debut in 2005 with the crime novelmining children, which was about a murder case in a disused coal mine. The novel received positive reviews and marked the beginning of a successful career as an author.
With his following works, including The Steel Cutter(2010) andBlack smoke over Bochum(2015), Kronenburg deepened his reputation as a chronicler of the Ruhr region and a suspensefulTeller.
Personal life
Ralf Kronenburg still lives in Bochum today and is proud to be a “child of the Ruhr area”. He is married and has two grown-up children. In his free time, he enjoys taking long walks along former mining paths or attending local football matches.
Although he is known for his dark stories, Kronenburg describes himself as a humorous and sociable person. "You have to look at life with a wink, even when you write stories about the darkest sides of humanity," he says.
influence and legacy
Kronenburg is often compared to international authors such as Håkan Nesser and Jo Nesbø, but his works remain unmistakably German and deeply rooted in the culture of the Ruhr region. His books are not only exciting crime novels, but also a reflection of the social and culturalRealities of a changing region.
Chapter 1: The Cold House
Bochum, January. The cold crept through every crack in the city. It was one of those nights where the frost bit into your bones and brought with it a feeling of loneliness that was hard to shake off. An icy wind made the street lamps flicker and chased empty sheets of paper along the sidewalks. Kai Urban, 27 years old, pulled his scarf tighter around his neck and blew into his cupped hands as he stood on the creaky steps in front of the small terraced house. House number 17, where he was supposed to report to a woman named Maria Kipper.
An unusual job on a Friday night, but it was good money. This old lady, she had explained on the phone, had been having problems with her television for days and sounded downright desperate when she asked him to come that evening. Kai thought briefly about the end of the day, about the cold beer that was waiting for him in the fridge at home. But then he thought about the rent for his small apartment and the repairs to his old car,which hardly started in the morning. An additional job on a Friday evening couldn't hurt.
He pulled the bell cord. A shrill ringing sound came from inside and faded in the cold wind. Kai looked around; the neighborhood was quiet, as if deserted. Most of the people living here were elderly. The windows of most of the houses were dark, as if the entire block had long since gone to bed.
The door opened slowly. In the doorway stood a small woman with silver-gray hair that fell in fine braids over her shoulders. Her face was lined with deep wrinkles, but her eyes shone alertly and somehow curiously.
“Mr. Urban?” Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, like a distant echo in the silence of the night.
Kai nodded and forced a friendly smile. "Good evening, Mrs. Kipper. Did you have problems with your television?"
"Oh yes," she sighed, making an inviting gesture with her bony hand. "Come in, it's far too cold to stand out here."
The thought of the warm room left Kai withoutHe entered hesitantly. The warmth in the house greeted him as Maria quietly closed the door behind him. The old house had the characteristic smell of must and wood that you often find in very old buildings.
"It's this way," said Maria as she walked ahead of him, her back slightly bent as if she had been carrying heavy loads for decades. She led him down a narrow hallway whose walls were lined with yellowed pictures in wooden frames. The air was stuffy, almost sweet, and Kai was reminded of his own grandparents' living quarters.
They entered the living room. An old-fashioned armchair stood by the window, and on a wobbly little table lay a book that had apparently been read several times. On the carpet in the middle of the room stood an old tube television, the kind of clunky device you rarely see these days. Kai felt the old woman's eyes on his back as he knelt down next to the device and fetched the tools from his backpack.
“It’s a nice old machine,” he murmured, trying to shake off the unpleasant feeling.“Almost a collector’s item.”
"Yes, yes," Maria answered from a corner of the room, her voice seeming to come from far away. "It has been with me for many years."
Kai took a look at the connections and started to remove the outer shell. "I have to take a quick look and see what's going on here. It won't take long."
He concentrated on his work, unscrewing the TV, looking for the problem and trying to get the electronics to work. The sound of the screwdriver echoed in the room and he hardly noticed how quiet it had suddenly become around him. The clock on the wall ticked monotonously and was the only sound that broke the silence.
Then, out of nowhere, something cold and rustling was suddenly pulled over his head. A moment of confusion - he tried to sit up, but his vision was blurred. Something dark and soft wrapped itself tightly around his head and closed relentlessly around his neck. A tug and he realized that it was a plastic bag that was preventing him from breathing.
His heart was beating wildly, panic flared up. Hetried to tear the bag with his hands, to grab it, anything, but a strong pull held him back. The room around him spun, becoming a narrow, dark tunnel. His head felt hot and cold at the same time as he gasped desperately for air, a wheezing sound coming from his throat. He thrashed around, but his strength was fading.
Then he heard a low, throaty laugh - cold and merciless. It came from right behind him, and he suddenly realized it was Maria. The old woman laughed as she slowly but surely smothered him. "You are still so young and tender," she whispered as his consciousness began to fade. "You will surely taste good."
Then she laughed out loud. She seemed to really enjoy this bizarre and brutal situation and didn't want to miss any of it
Kai wanted to scream, wanted to run away, but his arms and legs felt numb. The darkness closed in mercilessly around him, and the last thing he felt was the stabbing pain of the cold eating into his limbs before everything sank into blackness.
Chapter 2: The Lost Tracks
Chief Inspector Daniel Berger leaned back and stared at the city map that was displayed on the wall of the homicide squad's meeting room. With a quiet click, he had just inserted a blue pin in a place that particularly caught his eye: the electronics store "Günzlers Technik-Oase". This was where Kai Urban had last been seen - two days since anyone had heard from him.
Daniel let his gaze wander over the other colorful pins that dotted the city map. Red marked the locations where bones had been found in recent months, almost always at the city's waste incineration plant. Blue meant the "last location" of the missing people, who were usually found dead or in pieces shortly afterwards. It was a cursed map full of loss, full of incomprehensible violence and dark secrets that simmered deep beneath the surface of Bochum.
The atmosphere in the room was oppressive, the colleaguesseemed tense. No wonder - Kai Urban's disappearance was the third this week. "Nothing unusual in Bochum," Daniel tried to tell himself. There were always missing persons cases; a big city like Bochum brought that with it. But this pattern, which had developed over the last two years, had reached a new dimension.
Daniel closed his eyes and sighed. Images rose up in his mind, images that he would have preferred to suppress. The last finds were not ordinary corpses. The bones were bleached clean, many were broken, some had even been boiled. The horrified murmur of the coroner echoed in Daniel's head: "Maybe some kind of cannibalism..."
Daniel gritted his teeth. The idea that someone in his city was kidnapping and killing people, and then... no, he couldn't think that. Not now. Even the slightest suspicion about these disgusting details would send the press into a frenzy and the whole of Bochum would be terrified. The thought made him shudder. How do you explain to a population that someone in the city might be... eating people?
He opened his eyes and focused on the map again. The Kai Urban case was like a lump in his throat. Something about this story felt different, but it wasn't anything tangible. Maybe it was because Kai was young, only 27. Daniel couldn't help but think of the first missing persons cases that had cropped up according to the new pattern. People who suddenly disappeared and whose bones - the last remnants of their existence - then later turned up in places where they should never have been.
His head was pounding, his thoughts seemed to be exploding. He wondered how many more times he could endure this. He was in his 39th year and had seen many bad cases, but this case, the way people disappeared and the way the discoveries had to be handled... it was wearing him down.
"Daniel?"
The quiet voice of his colleague tore him from his thoughts. "Yes?" he murmured and slowly turned around. It was Lukas, one of the younger investigators, freshly transferred to the homicide squad. A spark flickered in his eyes that reminded Daniel of his own beginnings - thoseA mixture of ambition and naivety that would soon be ground down by reality.
"Kai Urban's family just called. They haven't heard from him for days. Apparently he was on a job to see a certain Maria Kipper. The address is near here, maybe a few streets away from Günzler's shop."
“An older lady?” Daniel raised an eyebrow.
Lukas nodded. “62 years old, lives alone.”
Daniel thought about it. "I'll go with you. I want to see the situation myself."
Lukas nodded respectfully and they left the meeting room together. The cold January day greeted them outside with a frosty gust of wind that sent chills through Daniel's bones. It was one of those dull afternoons that knew no color. He pulled his coat tighter and sat down next to Lukas in the car.
On the way to Maria Kipper's address they were silent, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Daniel felt the queasy feeling in his stomach that had accompanied him since the beginning of these cases. There was somethingThere was something unspeakable about this matter, something dark that he couldn't grasp.
Finally they stopped in front of a small, run-down terraced house. The shutters were closed and only a faint light filtered through from inside the house. The front garden looked neglected, weeds grew between the paving stones and the wooden slats of the garden fence were weathered.
“It doesn’t look very inviting,” Lukas muttered, nervously pushing his cap over his face.
"It's rare in these cases," Daniel muttered, got out and walked ahead of Lukas to the door. He knocked, the cold prickled unpleasantly on his skin and a queasy feeling settled in his stomach. After a while they heard footsteps inside the house, then the door opened a crack. A pair of cold, piercing eyes looked out.
“Mrs. Kipper?” Daniel held up his badge.
The old woman nodded. Her eyes were narrowed, suspicious, as if she wasn't quite sure whether she wanted to let the officers in or not. But finally she opened the door wider and invited them in. TheThe smell that wafted towards Daniel was stale and dull, like that of a house where the windows were opened too rarely.
"We're looking for Kai Urban," Daniel began. "He was here the day before yesterday to look at your television, is that right?"
Maria Kipper nodded and smiled slightly, but it was a smile that made him shiver. "Oh yes, a nice boy. So polite. But unfortunately he had to leave again without being able to repair the television."
"Do you know where he went after that?" Daniel tried to stay calm, but something about the way she spoke put him on alert. It was almost as if she was remembering a visit from an old friend, rather than a stranger who wanted to run a quick errand.
"No, he just said he was in a hurry and then he left." Her voice suddenly sounded cold, almost mechanical. "That's all I saw."
Daniel looked at her in silence, trying to read her facial expressions, but her gaze was empty and inscrutable. Finally, he nodded slowly. "Thank you, Ms. Kipper. We'll get in touch immediately if we have any more questions."
