A few days ago, I received a mysterious card with the intriguing question "Do you dare enter the fairy tale forest?" Then shortly after, the book itself arrived. Of course I dared to enter!

Fairy Tale Forest

Martin Krist

Max and his younger sister Ellie are locked in a wardrobe by their mother. She gives Max strict instructions: watch over his little sister and, no matter what happens, take her to their grandfather.

At almost the same time, Zoe awakens in a dark alley somewhere in Berlin, severely injured and traumatized. She can't remember anything - she's not even sure what her real name is or how she ended up in that alley.

In another part of Berlin, Detective Paul Kalkbrenner is called to what seems like a routine scene - an elderly man died of a heart attack. But what investigators find in his storage room is anything but routine.

My Impressions:

And while Max held his sister close, he imagined the stuffy, dimly lit closet as the cave his mother used to tell him about when he was still a little boy, right before falling asleep.

The Narrative Layers

Fairy Tale Forest unfolds across multiple narrative threads that run parallel for much of the story. There are three main storylines:

• Max and Ellie embark on a journey across Berlin to reach their grandfather. It's a difficult and dangerous path, where they encounter all kinds of people. Max keeps himself and Ellie going with the story of the fairy tale forest, where, as in all fairy tales, everything turns out right in the end.
• The second thread follows Zoe - though that's not her real name. She doesn't know what happened, but she knows she's being hunted. So she flees through Berlin, much like the children, searching for the truth. Occasionally memories flash through her mind that she can't place, but she's determined to get to the bottom of them.
• The third layer revolves around the elderly man who died, seemingly harmlessly, of a heart attack. Except there are body parts in his storage room and food remnants on his table, and both the body parts and his dinner scraps share the same DNA, confirming they're dealing with a cannibal.

All three narrative threads are naturally interwoven - the central question for the reader is how. Despite various personal troubles, Kalkbrenner investigates the cannibal case with determination, getting closer and closer to the genuinely disturbing truth. I found it particularly compelling that all the characters occasionally cross paths by chance, without realizing there's a connection between them. What I found frightening were the many abysses that opened up and who was involved in the events.

Connections

The story's structure and the perspective shifts in rapidly alternating chapters give the narrative tremendous momentum and definitely kept me turning pages. Initially, I was more captivated by the descriptions of what the children experience on their odyssey through Berlin and how Zoe deals with her memory loss than by the cannibal investigation. Perhaps I read too many thrillers? However, toward the end, the events increasingly blend together, and the more connections you recognize, the more horrified you become.

Of course there are some inconsistencies, at least for me - but they don't really detract from the overall impression. Fairy Tale Forest shines through a gripping core story told with great attention to detail. The protagonists feel very real, so you truly believe you know them - and you like some, dislike others, and despise still others. Just like in real life. However, life contradicts the fairy tale at the end, because in life, not everything turns out right in the end.

My Verdict:

A suspenseful, coherent story with a decidedly stomach-churning premise. I now view dinner invitations with different eyes. Anyone who enjoys exploring human depths shouldn't miss Fairy Tale Forest.