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the complete review - fiction

Revolver Christi

by
Anna Albinus

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B+ : an odd kind of mystery-tale, but very well written

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Es entspinnt sich hier nun aber kein gewöhnlicher Kriminalplot, sondern die Handlung beginnt rund um die eigentümliche Anziehungskraft des Revolvers zu kreisen. Gleichzeitig kommen immer mehr Formen des Sichtbarwerdens zusammen (…..) Albinus zeigt in ihrem Erstling ein gekonntes Geflecht aus Andeutungen. [Albinus] präsentiert eine geradezu klassisch gebaute Novelle, die, wie von der Textsorte gefordert, in einem Zug zu lesen ist. Das liegt nicht nur am recht überschaubaren Umfang, sondern vor allem an der trittsicheren Schreibweise und Konstruktion (…..) Mit scheinbar mühelos präziser Sprache und genauer Beobachtungsgabe ausgestattet, konzentriert sie anspielungsreich Motive und lässt dabei leisen, lakonischen Humor erkennen." - Johanna Lenhart, Die Presse

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       The slim novella Revolver Christi is a mystery of sorts, touching on several violent deaths. It is narrated by police inspector Thomas, called in to investigate an unusual crime: in 2018 a gun, the 'Revolver Christi', features, suspended in a glass case, in an exhibit in the local cathedral by: "One of the most famous contemporary light artists", and a local woman visits the exhibit and shoots the case, breaking the gun -- identical to the one she fired (i.e. definitely: "created by the same hand") -- free (though she is then immediately detained and arrested).
       The 'Revolver Christi' comes with its own history, as more than a century earlier, in 1908, seventeen-year-old Peter Zochen had apparently committed suicide in the cathedral with it; among the odd circumstances at the time was that: "a shallow, circular wound was discovered over the dead man's solar plexus, red in colour, like a stigma" (though he had been killed by a shot to the head).
       The contemporary exhibit also paired the revolver with: "one of the three surviving Christ-at-arms icons" from the eighth century, retrieved from a monastery in Lower Egypt, Umma Maram, though this is exhibited separately, in an art gallery. It is a relic depicting an 'Armed Christ', with a dark spot "in the centre of his chest" .....
       Thomas continues to look into the cases and connections, though a sense of mystery remains around much of this. Stray and strange connections are uncovered -- such as the woman who shot the case, Johanna Wächter, giving Thomas a batch of letters that his father-in-law wrote to her grandfather over the years: among them is a photograph of Thomas' wife, Susanne, as a five-year-old, and her mother from a visit to ... Umma Maram in 1974.
       Wächter also reaches out to Thomas' daughter, Mara, and the girl, who turns thirteen during the course of the story, also exhibits some unusual behavior -- nicely presented, with Thomas a father uncertain of how to take or react to the girl's changing behavior as she approaches adolescence (and doing a decent job in both giving her space and providing support). The family has a vacation house in Crete and this and some of their venturing there also figures in the story.
       There is more mysterious death; there is another gun that goes off ..... But Revolver Christi is far from a traditional mystery novel -- and also does without the easy resolutions of much such fare. There is some exploration and explanation of what unites Zochen and Wächter and others, but much of Thomas' narrative also deals with his and his family's life over these months -- touched in part by the events he investigates, but only in more or less peripheral ways. Much of the appeal of the novel is in his telling of the story -- not least his dealings with other matters, including his daughter as well as a variety of his and his family's experiences in Crete.
       Late in the novella Thomas admits:

     I realised I had been investigating for over a year, without making the least progress. All the connections that had come to light, all the details I had unearthed, told me nothing about the revolver and even less about the Christ-at-arms.

- M.A.Orthofer, 2 March 2026

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Links:

• Dedalus publicity page
• edition.fotoTAPETA publicity page
• Allia publicity page

• Deutschlandfunk (German)
• Deutschlandfunk Kultur (German)
• En attendant Nadeau (French)
• Kulturgeschwätz (German)
• Lesen mit Links (German)
• Literaturgefluester (German)
• Le Matricule des Anges (French)

• See Index of German literature

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About the Author:

       German author Anna Albinus was born in 1986.

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© 2026 the complete review

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