Set in an apparently ordinary apartment complex in 1939 Vienna 'The Quiet Twin' gives an interesting insight in to the growing menace of National Socialism within the country at the time. The tenants a microcosm for the terrifying realities which are to come.

The apartments are inhabited by an weird assortment of characters, all either sick or oddly eccentric. There is 9 year-old Lieshen who lives with her alcoholic father; the teenage hypochondriac niece of a disgraced Professor who is working for the Party as a Zellenwart (a neighbourhood spy) in the hope of regaining some of his lost standing, who fakes illness in the hope of gaining some romantic attention and whose own twin sister died about 10 years previously; a Japanese trumpeter who seems to witness all of his neighbours indiscretions; an English teacher who sells her body for sex as a side line; an amputee survivor of the Great War; and a mime artist and his twin sister, Eva, who is paralysed from the neck down.

When Zuzka, the niece of the disgraced Professor, persuades their housekeeper to contact Dr. Anton Beer, another resident of the building, and bring him to see her for her health issues one night, he quickly learns that Zuzka is more interested in her romantic rather than her physical health. However, whilst he is there she takes him to her bedroom window and has him look out and into the private lives of many of the other residents.

Gradually as reader learns about the private lives of the apartment block's residents, including Dr. Beer himself, newly single after his wife has left him, we realise that everyone has something to hide. So when Prof. Speckstein’s old and much-loved dog is found murdered and disembowelled, it brings the apartment block to the unwanted attention of the Police, in particular the sadistic Tueben, and leads to a further series of grisly murders which will affect them all. As the tension escalates however, the reader soon realises that this isn't a murder mystery tale but one about growing paranoia.

Rather astutely,before each section of this novel, Vyleta recounts the brief history of a real person from the past, which parallels not only the action within the story but also the socio-political atmosphere in the city. For example, Peter Kurten, at age nine watched his uncle slaughtering dogs, and then went on to become a serial killer himself in the late 1890s. I felt that these parallels between past and present made the action that then followed far more vivid.

Although Otto Frei, the mime artist, and his sister are twins, as are Zuzka and her sister Dasa, the real “twins” of this novel’s title are the ones that everyone has. The private selves that only we can know and the public one that others see. The suggestion being that it is each person’s own “quiet twin” which enables him/her to survive, sometimes at the expense of others, in fraught times.

The story was generally well written with a certain amount of black humour. However, where this book was let down IMHO was in the characterisation of Anton Beer himself. Personally I felt that he lacked the necessary depth to carry the growing horror going on around him which was a real shame as overall I felt that this was an interesting concept. ( )

Dan Vyleta is a genius of a story teller. The Quiet Twin is full of menacing, paranoid atmosphere and both tender and violent relationships. A sophisticated literary thriller, taking place in Vienna in 1939, at a time when the threat of Nazism hangs over every person and in every conversation and action.

A tale of compassion and violence in which nearly every well drawn character is hiding secrets.

A fabulous read! ( )

Dan Vyleta, with whom, in the interest of full disclosure I have crossed paths at a couple of literary festivals, is a writer of significance and elegance. Dan is the son of Czech refugees who emigrated to Germany in the late 1960s, although he now lives and teaches in the Great Lakes region of the US. His European background is a clear influence on this work, which takes place in Vienna, in the autumn of 1939 -- shortly after Austria's annexation by the Nazis.

The book blurb will tell you what you need to know of the plot, but allow me to say this is a novel of intricate subtly and slight of hand -- things are not always as they seem. In the afterword, Vyleta says: "My primary interest in this book belonged with the arm of opportunists whose crimes were at times as grave in their consequences as those perpetrated by the true believers. Sixty-five years after the Second World War it is easy for most of us to convince ourselves we could never have belonged amongst those who would have held wrong-headed beliefs; it is a more nagging question to wonder what one might have done in order to secure some modicum of social and material success."

Set in a claustrophobic apartment block the novel's vividly-rendered characters watch their neighbors and speculate about the violent going-ons so that what is public and what is private is called into question -- threat builds and the bodies mount up, but the assumptions drawn, by reader and characters alike, shift and then shift again. It's masterfully done.

The tone of the novel, the shrouded backdrop of National Socialism and all that implies -- so rancid and corrosive -- acts as another central character. Mood and atmosphere simply ooze off the pages. There are shades of "Rear Window" here, if that play had been written by Goebbels.

HIGHLY recommended. ( )

The Quiet Twin is an interesting work of literary fiction, with a layered plot built around the actions of unusual and compelling characters. This mystery, set in the ominous atmosphere of Nazi controlled Vienna, leaves the reader with questions, making it a good candidate for book club discussions. ( )

This is an extremely well written book set in Vienna in 1939. The plot and the murders actually seem more of a background to the paranoia that surrounded those who felt they had something to fear from Hitler and his SS. A time when a knock on the door was a frightening event, and the people inhabiting an apartment building surrounding a courtyard, find much to occupy themselves with by spying on the others living in the complex. Small nuances take on a sinister tone when a dog is killed and four women are found dead. It seems that everyone has something to hide in this darkly complex novel. ( )