"The Profile" by Hubertus Borck - If you like Fitzek, you will love this thriller

Created: 10/25/2022, 6:00 p.m

By: Sven Trautwein

The start of the series may look like a repetition of criminal clichés.

However, Hubertus Borck manages to create a strong thriller with skill.

My book tip.

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A serial killer is up to mischief in Hamburg.

He searches for his victims on social networks, who sometimes make it far too easy for him.

A serial killer may no longer lure die-hard thriller fans out from behind the stove, but Hubertus Borck succeeds in creating an extremely exciting book with a change of perspective and a gripping writing style.

Hubertus Borck "The Profile": About the book

Hubertus Borck “The Profile” © Rowohlt

i know your profile

It will be your undoing.

#Qual.#Murder.#Death.The dead man in the sandpit is buried up to his larynx.

He's missing an eye.

The macabre find on a Hamburg playground puts the experienced detective Franka Erdmann and her new assistant Alpay Eloglu under high pressure.

Shortly thereafter, a young influencer is brutally killed in her apartment.

Although the handwriting of the two crimes differs, increasing evidence points to the same killer.

And while the police are frantically profiling him, he's already monitoring the Instagram account of his next victim, whose seemingly perfect life is about to come to a horrible end.

Rowohlt

Well developed and described in great detail, the start of the series about detective inspector Franka Erdmann and her new assistant Alpay Eloglu begins very solidly.

In short: Hubertus Borck can write.

He has proven this as a theater and screenwriter for "Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten" or "Wege zum Glück", for example.

"The Profile": Prelude to the Erdmann-Eloğlu series

The detailed descriptions and the very good dialogues take the title to another level.

In 2020 Hubertus Borck was one of the winners of the Rowohlt writing competition.

Due to the pandemic, Borck began to shift his professional activities somewhat.

Theaters had to close.

When he saw the call for a writing contest, he wanted to give it a try, even though he never intended to write a crime novel.

As you can see from “The Profile”, he succeeded.

Borck is concerned with how one can become a perpetrator.

As in Seeck's "Devil's Net" or in "Poppy" by Kristina Getz, social media also play a major role in the thriller.

With a little skill, Google Maps and luck, you can find out a lot about the user by thoughtlessly posting a supposedly private photo on Instagram.

This is how the perpetrator in "Das Profil" proceeds and is already looking for his next victim via social networks.

Hubertus Borck "The Profile": My conclusion

A successful start to the series.

Two opposing investigators, an exciting case that I, as a reader, could root for.

For everyone who likes Fitzek and Kliesch.

The second volume of the series, "The Clinic", is planned for March 2023.

I am excited.

Not without reason one of our recommendations for the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Hubertus Borck "The Profile"

2022, Rowohlt ISBN-13 978-3-644-01225-7

Price: paperback €12, e-book €4.99, 379 pages (different format) - order now (promotional link)

Hubert Borck

Hubertus Borck, born in Lübeck in 1967, was the creative head of the Hamburg music cabaret duo Bo Doerek.

Today he works as a playwright and screenwriter and lives in Hamburg.