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“She was far more than a showgirl”: crime novelist Veronika Rusch gets lost in historical material

2021-05-06T08:48:23.575Z


With her crime thriller “Death is a Dancer”, the first volume of the three-part Josephine Baker Conspiracy, Veronika Rusch takes her readers to Berlin in the 1920s. There, National Socialists are apparently planning an attack on the dazzling dancer.


With her crime thriller “Death is a Dancer”, the first volume of the three-part Josephine Baker Conspiracy, Veronika Rusch takes her readers to Berlin in the 1920s.

There, National Socialists are apparently planning an attack on the dazzling dancer.

  • After eight years, Veronika Rusch is publishing under her name again for the first time.

  • For “Death is a Dancer” the author delves into the Roaring Twenties and the Weimar Republic.

  • after no readings are possible, the Garmisch-Partenkirchnerin falls back on the Internet.

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

- She tasted blood.

After a number of thrillers and other novels, Veronika Rusch ventured into historical material for the first time.

“I had great respect for the challenge,” says the Garmisch-Partenkirchen native.

In contrast to her previous books, the trilogy required a lot more research.

On the one hand she had to deal with Josephine Baker, the dazzling dancer, and on the other hand with the Weimar Republic and the burgeoning National Socialism.

In addition, it was important to reproduce the atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties, the heyday of German art, culture and science.

"That was fun," emphasizes Rusch, who is publishing under her own name again after eight years.

"I really lost myself during that time, met a lot of interesting people and got a lot of ideas for new books." It will be exciting.

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The Josephine Baker trilogy is Veronika Rusch's first historical project.

© Frank Luebke

"Death is a dancer" is the title of the first volume in which an unwilling investigator meets the glamorous artist. It is a cold morning in January 1926 when the dazzling Josephine Baker arrives in Berlin. After her sensational success in Paris, she now also wants to take the German capital by storm. But not all of Berlin is obviously looking forward to the Afro-American superstar, who with his “Danse de Sauvage” (Dance of the Wild) not only breaks the boundaries of dance, but also of morality on stage. Practically naked, apart from pearl necklaces and a few feathers, she both arouses and disturbs her audience. This outraged right-wing nationalist military sports groups that still operate largely in secret. Your goal:an eradication of the multicultural entertainment society and, in the end, an overthrow of democracy. For them, Josephine Baker would be the perfect victim. Tristan Nowak, a traumatized war veteran and boxer in constant need of money, is supposed to protect them from an attack and initially does not believe in the threat. But there is a risk. And their opponents will stop at nothing.

Josephine Baker was a showgirl and, above all, a civil rights activist

Not the photo of the young woman in a banana skirt, but one of her in a sulky drawn by a bouquet, animated Rusch to deal with this woman.

“She was far more than a showgirl,” emphasizes the author.

“It's amazing how she was able to assert herself in these racist and sexist times.” Baker campaigned for the rights of Afro-Americans, supported the Resistance in World War II, became a civil rights activist and finally adopted twelve children of different origins - her “rainbow- Family ”, for them a protest against racism.

"She lived very unconventionally," says Rusch.

It was not easy to counter this personality, the linchpin of the trilogy, with an interesting character.

“I worked on that for a long time.” The result was Nowak, who did not leave the dancer's side in the second part “The Trace of Cruelty”, which was published in June.

The third volume, “The Darkness of the World”, will hit bookshops in August.

It was actually not planned that way, the publication of the opening novel was postponed last year due to Corona.

In the meantime, however, Rusch thinks the short distance is quite good, "that way you can keep your attention high."

Various online formats to keep in touch with readers

What is less good, however, is that readings are not possible because of the pandemic.

That is why she has developed various formats online to bring the reading material closer to her audience.

Readings, live talks and a small cocktail party with music await their fans on Rusch's Instagram channel.

Every two weeks, always on Thursdays at 7 p.m., she will continue to take interested parties with her in order to prepare them for the following volumes.

“I've been working on it for three years, then I can't unmistakably release the books into the world.” Since only the Internet is currently available as a platform, she falls back on it and is happy, at least with her To get into conversation with readers.

"Death is a dancer"

comprises 493 pages, was published by Piper-Verlag (ISBN 978-3-492-06241-1) and costs 12.99 euros.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-05-06

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