Audiobook Review: Butcher, Biter, Spy, by Ryan Green, narrated by Steve White

Summary

On the bloodstained floor lay an array of butcher’s tools and a body without a throat, torn out by Fritz’s “love bite”…

Deemed psychologically unfit to stand trial for child abuse, Fritz Haarmann was locked up in a mental asylum until a new diagnosis as “morally inferior” allowed him to walk free. His insights into the criminal underworld convinced the police to overlook his “activities” and trust him as an informant.

What harm could it do?

When the dismembered and ravaged remains of young men began to wash up on the banks of the river, a war-torn nation cowered under the threat of the man known as the Butcher, Vampire, and Wolf Man.

The hunt for the killer was on, and he was hiding in plain sight.

Butcher, Biter, Spy is a chilling retelling of one of the most brutal killing sprees in German history. Ryan Green’s riveting narrative draws the listener into the real-live horror experienced by the victims and has all the elements of a classic thriller.

My Review

Ryan Green sent me a free Audible code for this audiobook in return for a review. Thanks Ryan.

Fritz Haarmann was born in the late nineteenth century in Hanover, the youngest son of an older, disabled mother and a bullying, criminal father. He was his mother’s favourite and his father’s punching bag. He struggled at school and enjoyed causing problems with other, younger, students. His homosexuality is obvious from a young age and he struggles to make friends. His job prospects are limited by his bad behaviour so he tries the army, but his epilepsy stops him making progress. He gets engaged because of social pressure. He ends up in prison on multiple occasions and eventually becomes a fence in stolen goods.

During one of his prison stays he meets Hans, a younger man with whom he falls in love. Once they get out of prison they move in together, but Hans is a pimp and he mostly prefers women. To keep Hans, Fritz gives him gifts. Hans moves in and out of Fritz’s life, meeting women and forcing them into prostitution, and living it up in post-Great War Hamburg.

At the same time, Fritz was acting as an informant for the Hamburg police and killing young men and boys. He abducted some of his victims from the central police station, and the local police refused to see the obvious link between their favourite meat supplier and the missing boys. It took the Berlin police to see the links and arrest Haarmann. He was executed and Hans was imprisoned until the late 1940s as an accomplice.

Germany in the 20s and 30s was quite a swinging place, 50 years ahead of the rest of Europe in terms of gender and sexuality research and acceptance of homosexuality. Right up until Haarmann was caught and the Nazis started playing on people’s fears of homosexual men.

As always, Ryan Green writes an engaging biography of a vile human being. His exploration of the childhood and early life of Haarmann, then his crimes and the investigation into them. The book is detailed without being gratuitously graphic. He includes details of the culture of the times and places of his subject’s life.

Steve Wright has a good voice for narration.