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Brother Grimm (Jan Fabel #2)

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 · rating details · 514 ratings · 64 reviews

A girl's body lies, posed, on the pale sand of a Hamburg beach, a message concealed in her hand. 'I have been underground, and now it is time for me to return home...'

Jan Fabel, of the Hamburg Murder Squad, struggles to interpret the twisted imagery of a dark and brutal mind. Four days later, a man and a woman are found deep in woodland, their throats slashed deep and wide...more

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Published January 18th 2007 by Arrow (first published January 1st 2006)

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Jun 18, 2013 Seshat rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Este não era definitivamente o livro que deveria ter lido depois de Gabriel García Márquez...

Apesar da insipidez do estilo de escrita de Russell, bom, mas banal, sem grande beleza, bem distante da assertividade narrativa de Márquez, esse não foi o maior problema de "O Irmão Grimm".

A premissa é excelente: tudo começa com o cadáver de uma jovem abandonado na praia, seguido alguns dias depois de um casal de amantes degolados e com uma referência aos contos dos irmãos Grimm. Em breve novos crimes su...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Daniel rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read Blood Eagle first, couldn't wait to read the second case of Hauptkommissar Jan Fabel - Brother Grimm. Actually, useful to know that the Jan Fabel books can be read out of sequence - however you'll have a richer experience if you read them in the right order as you'll be able to follow the evolution of Fabel and his team as they learn, stumble, almost break - while always hunting a serial killer.

This time around the killer's victims are inspired by the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm. Rid...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Kristen rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found this to be an unusual approach to a serial killer story. For one thing, it is set in Germany, and all the aspects of the story - names, places, culture, investigative style - are unrepentently German. I don't say that as a criticism. In fact the logic-based, methodical way of investigating that the team hunting this killer employ is actually quite refreshing in comparison to the car-chase, fist-fight, over-the-top approach that American murder stories tend to employ. This was a very cere...more I found this to be an unusual approach to a serial killer story. For one thing, it is set in Germany, and all the aspects of the story - names, places, culture, investigative style - are unrepentently German. I don't say that as a criticism. In fact the logic-based, methodical way of investigating that the team hunting this killer employ is actually quite refreshing in comparison to the car-chase, fist-fight, over-the-top approach that American murder stories tend to employ. This was a very cerebral, intelligent plot.

That's not to say that the story isn't exciting, because it is. The way the author has built the story and thought out the progression actually creates quite a solid amount of suspense and the build-up to the ending, although not terribly surprising still gives you that increase in heart rate that a good thriller should! We meet the killer on page 5 [albeit anonymously] and at that same time we are introduced to the creator of this killer - [It isn't a spoiler to note that here we have yet another example of what is the usual creator of serial killers. Enough said].

If you are from Germany or German in descent, I think that this book offers an additional point of interest for you. The author is clearly very interested in Germany's history, culture and people and he has included a great deal of detail in those areas in creating the characters and the surrounding story of the book.

Another thing that is slightly atypical in this book is that although it is about a serial killer there is very little gore presented. The killer kills in a variety of ways, but the murders are detailed in a fairly matter-of-fact way without the sensationalism that can give one nightmares in other similar books. That is not to suggest that this story isn't disturbing - it definitely is. But again, I would say that thoughtful writing and intelligence are the main ways the author tells his story, rather than relying on grisly or explicitly gory detail. It is your MIND this story will disturb as opposed to your stomach.

There's also the aspect of Grimm's Fairy Tales, which plays a substantial part in the plot. Here as well, the author has clearly done a vast amount of research and there is plenty of historical detail about the Grimm Brothers and their stories worked into the murder investigations.

One word of warning - the author does quite a bit of "set up" stuff at the beginning. The real meat of the story starts to take place around about page 80, but the information that comes before does factor into the rest of the book so it is worth sticking with the story until at least the page 100 mark before you give up on the book. What comes after is worth it.

In short, this is a cleverly conceived, well-written and intelligent murder story. If you like this type of book, you should find something of interest in Brother Grimm.(less)

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Apr 17, 2011 Willem van den Oever rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: in-english, thriller-mystery

Introducing the body of the (first) victim in an unusual or interesting way in any mystery-novel, helps hook the reader. But to keep this theme running and the reader hooked for the next couple of hundred pages, seems to be one of the hardest tasks for any crime-writer. Luckily, Craig Russell, while not delivering a literary masterpiece with ‘Brother Grimm’, keeps the reader racing through the pages of his 400+ paged novel. The pacing is high, the characters – thank to some done to death clichés...more

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Feb 25, 2010 Miriam rated it 5 of 5 stars

A crime novel set in Hamburg. Normally, that's two very good reasons for me to not even turn the first page but, hell, I was bored. So I started reading away anyways, not expecting to be remotely interested or touched even peripherally, and the next thing I knew was that it was 6 a.m. and I found myself quite unable to put the damn book down.

It has been noted before that the author throws around a fair amount of german vocabulary and, yes, it bothered me as well. And it didn't make any differenc...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Victoria rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-in-a-series, mystery-thriller, fairy-tales, serial-killer

What an amazingly strong sequel!! I think I enjoyed this follow-up more even than the first book in the series, Blood Eagle. This may, in part, be due to my own love of fairy tales. Russell impeccably weaves the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales into this murder mystery without adding a hokey or downright silly tone to the novel at all. It’s a riveting story and the plot certainly takes some unpredictable twists. Though there are plenty of clues thrown in to help reveal the killer’s true identity, Rus...more

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Oct 21, 2011 Monica rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Brother Grimm” is the second book in Craig Russell’s series featuring Jan Fabel. And although I don’t usually like to read books about gory and bloody serial killers, this book has a lot more substance to it than your typical serial killer novel. Strong characters, a plot that is complex and kept me guessing, and a flowing pace that is just right for a crime/mystery book. I’m glad there are a few more books yet to read in this series.

Jacket notes: “A girl's body lies, posed, on the pale sand of...more

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May 09, 2013 Lénia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013

A ideia-base está bem orquestrada. Não percebi quem era o assassino... até ter feito o que faço muitas vezes: fui ler a última página do livro, que tem apenas 6 linhas. E ali, bem visível, o nome do assassino e o desfecho da história. Escritores, a sério... há muita gente que, como eu, tem a mania de ler a última página antes de tempo. Não ponham lá os nomes dos assassinos. Tira a piada toda à coisa... Foi o que me aconteceu. Depois de ficar a saber quem era o culpado, li o resto do livro apenas...more

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May 08, 2011 Nilam Suri rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: suspense

there's fairy tales, and then there's serial killer. Oh my, what a perfect kind of book for me xD
and there's also the history about the fairy tales, and variations of them.

the criminal part's also engaging, not over done, but good. you can feel the creep on your neck while reading this book...

i like it.

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Aug 04, 2012 Sybil rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: suspense thriller readers

This is a nice thriller. I like the character of the villain the most... gives me the chills.
If adapted well into a film, suspense thriller moviegoers would love this. For me, the concept is fresh... dark, yes, but (sick as it may sound) it made me want look forward to how gruesome the next act of the villain will be.

I love reading suspense thrillers which, I think made it easy for me to guess who the villain is, his motive, who the next victim will be --- defeating the purpose of reading such...more

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Nov 03, 2009 Max California rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: thriller, badly-written

Ugh. This book had so much going for it, it really did. The storyline was great, it was just written so badly it was difficult to read!

The majot failing of this book was the constant referring to things in German, I don't speak German, so i'd just skim over the words. Or I'd read them, and try to think of a word that was similar to it.

Needless to say this made the story confusing!

Another thing that peeved me was the reference to the main character in the novel by his full police title in german...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Marielle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Overall good book, but eventhough I read it in Norwegian and the German wasn't as difficult, the German words still got a bit irritating after a while. Repetitions also started to bug me halfway through the book; in my opinion, there was no need to constantly remind the reader of what happened to the characters in (I am guessing) the first book.

Aside from this though, I really liked the premise of the book. And the story was enjoyable, but the storytelling wasn't exactly all up to par. All in a...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Paola rated it 4 of 5 stars

Cuentos de hadas, asesinatos y Hamburgo, una fórmula que me obligó a leer este libro.

La parte que no me agradó fue el hecho de que el autor pusiera tantas palabras en alemán, como los rangos policiacos y nombres de instituciones. No es el hecho de que el autor pretenda darle un tono más alemán al mismo libro, de hecho éso es realmente admirable y demuestra el compromiso de Craig de que su historia fuera lo más realista posible; lo que realmente me molesta es que tanto el autor como la casa edit...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Cláudia P. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I´m not usually a great fan of criminal books. But I like so much a new TV Series called Grimm that when I saw this book I had to read it. And I wasn´t disappointed. The story was about crimes but the descriptions of the scenes weren´t to much explicit, which was great for me, and I could follow their investigation being involves with the story and the reasons. Also, learnt a lot about the Grimm Brothers and origins of story tales that we think we know everything about. The team of investigation...more

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Jun 25, 2008 Dave rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

It's funny how the setting of a book can drastically change your impressions of it. This book, for example, takes place in Germany. More specifically, Hamburg.

Now, because I'm lazy I haven't done much research into this book, so I have no idea if the author is German, or if this book is a translation of another German book, or if he's American and just decided to set this book in Germany for whatever reason. Anything's possible.

However, being set in Germany, as I read I would run across passage...more It's funny how the setting of a book can drastically change your impressions of it. This book, for example, takes place in Germany. More specifically, Hamburg.

Now, because I'm lazy I haven't done much research into this book, so I have no idea if the author is German, or if this book is a translation of another German book, or if he's American and just decided to set this book in Germany for whatever reason. Anything's possible.

However, being set in Germany, as I read I would run across passages like the following:

"Fabel looked around the conference table and was very aware of Werner's and Anna's absence. Only Maria and himself remained of the core team and he had seconded two Kommissars, Petra Maas and Hans Rodger, from Kriminalhauptkommissarin Ute Walraf's sexual-crime Sonder
Kommission, which was based on the same floor of the Prasidium."

Now, it's not difficult to figure out what those German words mean. Nor is it all that important to the story. But it gets annoying. This is a typical murder-thriller story with the cops trying to find a killer; so you'd expect a lot of words like "forensic", "precinct", "Lieutenant"...things like that. But here they're all in German. And I don't speak German. Again, it's not that important to the story...but when you've picked up a book to be an easy read with very little thought required...trying to puzzle out 30-letter German words is annoying. And I'm not sure of the purpose...is it to make the book more authentic? Like I said before, maybe this book was translated from German and that's why. But I really don't get it. Just use the English version of the words, since the rest of the book is in English.

That's not really my biggest beef with this book, though. In fact, that was a very minor problem. The biggest issue I had with this book is that it was a lame ending. That's not to say I wanted some huge car chase at the end with a myriad of explosions and gunfights. Intellectual thrillers have endings that can be just as intense as those Hollywood-type endings. This was neither. There are a few murders, the cops try and figure them out, there are a few more murders, a cop comes up with the link pointing to the culprit, they go and arrest him at work, he comes along quietly, when they question him it's clear that he's crazy, they get their man. The end. It was just so disappointing. And the whole final scene where they go to the murderer's old house looking for his mother...? Ugh. Just lame.(less)

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Jul 10, 2012 Yami rated it 4 of 5 stars

i enjoyed reading this novel, the idea of using Grimm's collections as theme for a serial killer was interesting, although the pattern the killer choose was a little confusing, but hey! he is a mad psychopath after all, a nice read, and with a good back ground about the origin of the stories and the psychology behind it add to a sprinkle of history, yet serving it's main genre CRIME/Mystery with a good thrill good plot and appealing inspecting team, u would be guessing through out the whole thin...more

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Feb 02, 2013 Jamie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favourites

I most definitely recommend everyone to read this book.
Jan Fabel is the protagonist of the book, a murder detective of the Hamburg Police whose latest case is a serial killer who themes his murders on the Grimm fairy tales.
I originally came across this book on GoodReads when I was looking for books that were themed around fairy-tales So when I found this I was delighted. But not as much as I was as when I began reading it. (I should note that I have since discovered that this is the second part...more

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Sep 14, 2010 Danelle rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a chilling book that I only found because I was looking for things on fairytales for class. Turns out the way the character Jan Fabel describes the fairytales in relation to the german language helped me understand what I wanted from my homework assignment.

This is a really good book with lots of interesting plot twist, leaving you not sure how to feel in some cases. Though I must say I did see the last little bit coming but that was only because I'd been studying fairytales and have been...more

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Nov 07, 2012 Sherry marked it as fork-in-eye-buhbye

Shelves: hamburg, germany

Hamburg Book Club pick. Some of the events take place five minutes from the house, so that's kind of cool. Just started it, so we'll see. I'm usually not a fan of this kind of fiction.

*days later*

I read the sample on the Kindle. Writing was mediocre and was going in the direction of too many other stories I've already read or seen as a movie (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for example). I didn't even bother with it for the book club. Shame, as I love reading stories based where I live but my time...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Russianwitch rated it 2 of 5 stars

On the one hand yay on account of Grimm fairy tales serial killer. On the other hand the writer couldn't really keep my attention fully while telling the story.
I think it might have helped if I had read the first book in the series but I picked it up at the airport (probably) so there wasn't much choice.
Don't think I will be reading more of the series.

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Mar 19, 2012 Breanna rated it 5 of 5 stars

It was amazing. I've learned a bit more german, and now I understand the german form of some of the FairyTales are, so I am pretty happy. The suspense was great and again the characters had been well written. I couldn't have picked a better book to read during my Friday reading periods at school during english class as I freaked my teacher out something fierce.

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Jun 07, 2011 Fons rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: youngadult-or-adult-books, favourites, books-i-own, seen-movie-or-series, dark-chocolate

It takes some time to adjust to Russell's writing style, which is, in my opinion quite factual and dry. But when you get accustomed to this style (that shows resemblance to the grey city of Hamburg) it is a clever novel.
Once again we meet up with Detective Fabel, a few days? weeks? after the first book in the series.
This time another serial killer is on the loose and toys with the team in a fashion that is often seen in thrillers.
This book is, however, well above par. It's rich characters and e...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Amelianna R rated it 4 of 5 stars

Before I review this it's important to understand that I generally stay away from crime novels unless Sherlock Holmes is involved. This was a book the majority of our book club decided on.

It was an excellent read and a re-read will only illustrate how detailed our author was. Great story - would recommend to beginners in the crime genre and for people who generally love this theme I'd say it's a beach read!

I did not enjoy the German phrases, most likely because I have no knowledge or backgroun...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Jane Myers rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: thriller

Excellent. Craig is one of my favourite authors and this is my favourite book. The original Grimm fairy tales were very dark and this is captured in the novel & gruesome ways people meet their deaths.

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Mar 12, 2012 Barış Erdem rated it 5 of 5 stars

Craig Russell'ın eserlerinin bir kere tadına vardınız mı bırakmak mümküm olmuyor, yine kurgusu ve karakterleri son derece sağlam bir başyapıt daha,kesinlikle kaçırmayın derim.

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May 30, 2012 Nikki rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was worried this was going to be gory but it wasnt at all, just a good detective novel with a great theme and no, I didnt guess the killer!!

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Oct 14, 2012 Smilez99 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Great book. A little disturbing to me at times, but no regrets. Love the elaborate descriptions and layout of the story...

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Apr 24, 2013 Rowena rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a page turner - loved it.'Murder is no fairytale' A madman basing his murders on the tales of the Brothers Grimm.

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Apr 25, 2011 apple rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: suspense-thriller

Mein Gott! I'll never look at Disney princesses and their fairy godmothers the same way again

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Jul 27, 2011 Mezzogal Goh added it · review of another edition

Interesting story but tries too hard to draw the fairy tale/Brothers Grimm connection.

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About Craig Russell

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Craig Russell was born in 1956, in Fife, Scotland. He served as a police officer and worked in the advertising company as a copywriter and creative director. Russell had a long standing interest in the German language and in post war German history and society. He has been...more

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Quotes from Brother Grimm

“The major part of the meeting had been devoted to allocating resources to the various investigative tasks, the first of which was to get almost everyone on the job of identifying the dead girl.
The dead girl. Fabel was steadfastly committed to uncovering her identity, but it was that moment he dreaded most:
when the body became a person and the case number became a name.” — 1 person liked it

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title link	preview: Brother Grimm
avg rating	preview: Brother Grimm Goodreads rating: 3.84 (514 ratings)
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Brother Grimm (Jan Fabel #2)

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