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Here’s the set-up:
Eleanor and Franz Fabian arrive from New York to spend Christmas with Franz’s mother in her sedate retirement home in the Vienna Woods. Their expectations are low: at best, boredom, at worst, run-of-the-mill family friction. But when the wealthy, charming Herr Graf is found dead in his apartment with an ugly head wound, the Fabians are thrust into a homicide investigation. Some residents and staff have surprising connections to the dead man, but who would have wanted to kill him? Inspector Büchner tracks down the murderer against a backdrop of Viennese history from the Nazi years to the present day. Witty, suspenseful, lyrical, this is a literary whodunit that will keep you guessing till the last page.
Reader Comments
Family vacations don’t usually involve corpses. “A Place to Die” tells the story of the Fabian couple as they visit Franz’s mother in a retirement home, only to find a dead rich man in the basement of the home, bringing their Christmas vacation far more excitement than they really wanted. Blending mystery with the history of Vienna for a fun story, “A Place to Die” is quite the read, highly recommended.– Midwest Book Review, 5 StarsFor those mystery readers who look for a good deal of psychological insight along with an involving plot, A Place to Die will be a real find. Dorothy James has created a police inspector who leaves the reader wanting more. She has a good deal to say on the psychology of aging, plus she includes some very astute observations on the way couples interact. And if that weren’t enough, this reader learned some Austrian history along the way. I do hope we haven’t seen the last of Georg Büchner.– Amazon Reviewer, 5 Stars
About The Author
Dorothy James was born in Wales and grew up in the South Wales Valleys. Writer, editor, translator,she has published short stories as well as books and articles on German and 
Austrian literature. Her 1970 book on the Vienna of Ferdinand Raimund was re-printed in paperback form this year (2010). She has taught German language and literature at the University of London and the City University of New York, and English language at the University of Saarbrücken in Germany and has written many articles on the teaching of foreign languages. She was chair of the German Department of Hunter College for fourteen years and President of the American Association of Departments of Foreign Languages in 1990. A recent translation was a website for the Democracy Centre, Vienna: “Bildatlas Europa.” Her first murder mystery, “A Place to Die,” appeared this year (April 2010) and is set in Vienna, a city where she has lived for long stretches of time. She makes her home now in Brooklyn, but travels frequently to Berlin and to her native Wales. The sequel to “A Place to Die” will appear in 2011, and is set in Vienna, Berlin and New York. Chief Inspector Georg Büchner, irreverently named after another great dramatist of the nineteenth century, on whom James published a book in 1982, is the whimsical Viennese detective who unravels the mysteries in this new series of novels.
Austrian literature. Her 1970 book on the Vienna of Ferdinand Raimund was re-printed in paperback form this year (2010). She has taught German language and literature at the University of London and the City University of New York, and English language at the University of Saarbrücken in Germany and has written many articles on the teaching of foreign languages. She was chair of the German Department of Hunter College for fourteen years and President of the American Association of Departments of Foreign Languages in 1990. A recent translation was a website for the Democracy Centre, Vienna: “Bildatlas Europa.” Her first murder mystery, “A Place to Die,” appeared this year (April 2010) and is set in Vienna, a city where she has lived for long stretches of time. She makes her home now in Brooklyn, but travels frequently to Berlin and to her native Wales. The sequel to “A Place to Die” will appear in 2011, and is set in Vienna, Berlin and New York. Chief Inspector Georg Büchner, irreverently named after another great dramatist of the nineteenth century, on whom James published a book in 1982, is the whimsical Viennese detective who unravels the mysteries in this new series of novels.(This is a sponsored post.)
is the wonderful debut volume in a new series of literary detective novels… It’s a page-tuner, yes, but you wouldn’t want to turn the pages of this book TOO quickly: the prose is too lovely, the psychological insights too interesting, and the comic scenes are too funny to want to rush through it.
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