Certain cities seem made for a bit of murder and mayhem. There is the banking and commercial centre of Frankfurt am Main, for example. There is pulsating, offbeat Berlin. Venice is a nice place for corpses, too, a wonderfully morbid backdrop to Commissario Guido Brunetti's sleuthing in the best-selling murder mysteries of American author Donna Leon.

But Karlsruhe? Karlsruhe is not decadent, nor is it glamorous. It is unremarkably middle-class, quietly prosperous, and headquarters of Germany's highest courts. What would a serial killer be doing in Karlsruhe?

The perfect crime setting

Nevertheless, American detective novelist Karen Adams has chosen this friendly, cheerful city in Germany's Baden region as the setting for heinous crimes. "Well, Karlsruhe is a city I know," she explained. What Venice is to Leon, Karlsruhe is to Adams. She has lived there for 28 years.

Adams portrays her adopted hometown critically but with affection, giving centre stage to streetcars, a Karlsruhe institution. Karlsruhe is truly proud of its efficient streetcar system, which has been marketed internationally and is a trademark of the city.

Karlsruhe's famous trams feature in the plot of Adam's novel.

Blood on the tracks

At the beginning of her novel "The Street Sweeper", several bodies are found lying on streetcar tracks. When private detective Dan McAdam begins to investigate, the deaths appear to have been accidents. But it soon becomes clear that foul play was involved.

McAdam is a kind of male alter ego of the author - an American who wound up in Germany after marrying a German. Easygoing and likable, he has taken a career path that is anything but straight.

He is also not a particularly good detective. McAdam nearly bungles the case. But Conny Hartmann, a clever German police inspector, comes to the rescue.

American expat Karen Adams has lived in Karlsruhe for 28 years.

Adams wrote the book in English and tried to find an American publisher. The setting was too exotic, though. Where is Karlsruhe anyway? publishers wanted to know.

Adams finally succeeded in piquing the interest of Harry Rowohlt, a well-known German translator and columnist. With his help, "The Street Sweeper" was translated into German and published under the title "Strassenfeger".

Drawn to literature

Adams was born in 1948 in a small town in the U.S. state of Connecticut. From an early age, she felt drawn to literature, and the local library was her window to the world. Adams went on to study literature in the state of New York and then in England, and later worked at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington and University of Texas. In Karlsruhe, she devotes much of her time to the American library.

Adams' novel is published in German under the title "Strassenfeger."

No doubt the clubs will play an important role in her novel "Unter Indianern" ("Among Indians"), in which McAdam and Hartmann team up again to look for a killer in dangerous Karlsruhe.

8 March 2006

Copyright DPA with Expatica 2006

Subject: Karen Adams, "The Street Sweeper", expat novelist, Karlsruhe, American expats in Germany