SHARON — Anyone who has gotten to know the character of Willi Geismeier through the historical novels (“The Good Cop” and “The Constant Man”) by Sharon’s Peter Steiner will know that he is a force to be reckoned with, a one-time Munich police detective who stops at nothing to bring evil deeds to light and evil doers to justice.
Geismeier leaves the Munich force after having dealt with some of the worst initial schemes of the Nazis and their sympathizers as they came to power in the 1930s in “The Good Cop,” but after leaving Germany for the U.S., returns to his home country and again finds ways to serve the cause of good when he plunges into the thick of underground resistance against the Nazis during World War II in Steiner’s newest Geismeier novel, “The Inconvenient German.”
Willi is the leader of The Flower Gang, an ingenious structure of secret operatives across Germany and the occupied countries. Those involved use names of flowers to shield their real names from the Gestapo and others who would put them in danger as they try to move Jews and other targets, like an American pilot who crashed into the countryside outside of Munich, across the border to safety from the Nazi’s grasp.
The characters who are introduced throughout the novel give a vivid picture of what life was like during WWII under the Nazis. Steiner illuminates how those from all social strata had their lives completely dismantled and then rebuilt to either support or sabotage the Nazi war machine.
Steiner will have a book reading at the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon on Sunday, Dec. 4, from 4 to 5 p.m. For more information, go to www.hotchkisslibraryofsharon.org.
— Janet Manko
