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Tim Wickenden
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Angel Avenger: A German Historical Crime Thriller (Max Becker Thrillers) Kindle Edition

by Tim Wickenden (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 out of 5 stars 33 ratings

A nation scarred by violence. Ugly signs of a serial killer. Is this homicide detective chasing a villain… or a victim vigilante?

Germany, 1960. Max Becker is haunted by his past. Once a Nazi soldier, the Berlin investigator works himself to the bone to make amends and bring his country some redemption. So when tortured and naked male bodies show up along with cryptic messages, he’s determined to hunt down a cold-blooded criminal as the body count rises.

Driven to expose the truth when he discovers links to Russian soldiers responsible for unspeakable war crimes, Max fights a growing sympathy for the disturbed murderer. And now close to making an arrest, he’s at risk of his emotions rejecting duty in favor of a dangerous choice.

Can he find the delicate balance between ensuring justice and permitting understandable vengeance?

Angel Avenger is the dark first book in the Max Becker historical crime thriller series. If you like edge-of-your-seat suspense, morally gray characters, and seamlessly accurate settings, then you’ll love Tim Wickenden’s gripping page-turner.

Buy Angel Avenger to put integrity under the spotlight today!

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  1. Part of series
    Max Becker Thrillers
  2. Print length
    420 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Accessibility
    Learn more
  5. Publication date
    July 30, 2019
  6. Reading age
    15 - 18 years
  7. File size
    2.3 MB
  8. Page Flip
    Enabled
  9. Word Wise
    Enabled
  10. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Reviewed by Divine Zape for Readers' Favorite - 5 StarsAngel Avenger: A Max Becker Thriller by Tim Wickenden has a strong appeal to fans of thrillers and sleuth novels. It is September in 1960 and a serial killer is doing a lot of ghastly killings in Germany. The first victim is discovered tied to a tree; naked, tortured, shot in the head and left in the Spandauer forest with a message on his body. Detectives Max Becker and Bastian Döhl, from the Berlin Kriminalpolizei, are out to uncover the killer. But with more bodies surfacing, they quickly understand this crime is more complex than it seems. Who is killing Russians with criminal pasts? Follow this engrossing narrative and discover what it means for a detective to be caught in a difficult dilemma. Will Max choose his conscience or his duty when dealing with a crime with deep and entrenched roots? While this is an entertaining story, it poses powerful moral questions, placing the protagonist in a very delicate position. The characters are rock-solid and relatable. I loved the shadowy Günther and the effect he has on the protagonist. The author ensures the characters are thought out with roles that help the narrative move forward. It is intriguing and packed with action, a deftly plotted novel with a setting that captures the cultural and historical elements of a people. Angel Avenger: A Max Becker Thriller is hypnotic, a well-crafted story with great characters. It has many strong themes and the prominent one is the quest for revenge for an age-old crime. Tim Wickenden does more than write a story: the author compels readers to follow the characters and to find out where the action takes them next. A pure delight for fans of crime thrillers.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07VZN75L8
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Slugado Press
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 30, 2019
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 2nd
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2.3 MB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 420 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1916104884
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Part of series ‏ : ‎ Max Becker Thrillers
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 15 - 18 years
  • Best Sellers Rank: #2,845,262 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 out of 5 stars 33 ratings

About the author

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Tim Wickenden

Tim Wickenden

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Tim was born in Zimbabwe. He spent his early childhood there and in Hong Kong, returning to the UK age eight to attend boarding school, which he describes as ten years of hell. He spent his school holidays in West Germany becoming interested in that country’s turbulent history. A visit, age twelve, to the site of the former concentration camp inspired his article A Brief History of Bergen Belsen. Before moving into adult education, Tim worked in the IT sector. In 2005 he relocated to South West Wales, setting up a carpentry business, and began studying creative writing. He published his first historical novel Angel Avenger in 2019, with two more Take Back and That Girl in The Boxcar in 2024. His history article A Tale of Two Boys has been downloaded thousands of times and finally put an accurate date to a famous photograph of Hitler presenting awards to Hitler Youth boys. A passionate bookworm, Tim reads widely, and when he doesn’t have his nose in a book, he can be found walking or paddle-boarding the coast near his home, which he shares with his wife and son.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
33 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Kyla M. Jones
    5.0 out of 5 stars Captivatingly compelling
    Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2019
    Disclaimer: I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

    Wow. Just wow. It’s been a while since I’ve read anything as frankly compelling as Tim Wickenden’s Angel Avenger. It’s a very satisfying murder mystery, an accurate and human history lesson, an examination of the psychological results of the inhumanities of war.
    Set in Germany in the early 1960s, the horrors of World War II inflicted on the German people, forced into a hell on one side, hades on the other position between the Nazis and the opposing Russians, are still fresh in mind and scarred on the landscape. Women are just starting to be admitted to police work, as well as beginning to appear on the other side, as criminals.
    Angel Avenger could easily have been framed as a fairly simplistic story of abused woman has her revenge, but instead the author has chosen a more well-developed, in-depth approach. The villains have their good sides, the heroes with badges aren’t all good at all. Still, if you’re paying attention, and you really should be, there are comparisons drawn, subtly, between the truly good and the truly evil. The characters on both sides are thoroughly believable and easy to care about.
    Bodies are being found in post-WWII Berlin and they aren’t pretty. Tortured and mutilated, it is clear that, whoever committed these murders, the motive was personal. Police Inspector Max Becker gets that part early on, but the twisting puzzle he, and we, must solve takes a bit longer.
    Wickenden writes with detail, not tediously but richly. He draws the reader in, letting the reader feel the sidewalk, smell the rainy air tinged with the coppery scent of blood, be there with the characters in the space and time of the story. There are a couple of plot twists that, in the hands of a lesser author (or half the writers working in Hollywood) could be totally unbelievable, but here they fit smoothly into the story. My only complaint about these twists is that they make it devilishly difficult to write a review of the story itself without giving something away!
    It does gladden my heart to report that this is the second in what it is to be hoped will be a long series of Max Becker books. I look forward to reading up on any and all future adventures of Max, his family at home (who do provide solace on Max’s worse days and help with translating clues) and his team at the Police Department. If you like whodunnits, or historical mysteries, or just a well-crafted tale, Angel Avenger is a must-read.
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  • Emmett Hall
    4.0 out of 5 stars A Great page turner
    Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    One thing I find about tough guy books is their always going it alone is starting to put me off. Max Becker is a leader. He works his team. Collectively, that figure out the crimes together. I live that.

    The story period and place is fascinating. Tim brings to life a time rarely depicted.

    I would have given it five stars, but for the head hopping (POV). It took a little longer to warm up to the story than many people have the patience for but glad I did.
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  • Dan Santos
    5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended for police crime novel fans.
    Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2019
    This is an exciting novel about a case handled by the Berlin police in 1960. The capital of Germany was coming out of World War II's traumatic end. Much of the city bore the scars of falling to the enemy. The Soviet invasion turned out to be particularly heinous for its citizens.
    For the victims of Soviet atrocities, resentment was intense. This is one such case handled by the embryonic office of Berlin Criminal Police's Hauptkommissar Max Becker and his team.
    Tim Wickenden writes well. The suspense he built kept me interested throughout. Each time my eyelids tried to close, a new event snapped them open. The author writes the story as if a German narrator were telling it. In fact, those of us acquainted with the German language can find a great deal of comfort and familiarity with this 1960 Berlin story.
    I enjoyed it tremendously and wholeheartedly recommend it.
    Five Stars out of Five
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  • Eric Ostroff
    4.0 out of 5 stars A novelist who did his research
    Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2020
    Before I begin with this review, I need to make this confession to future readers of this book; and there WILL be future readers of this book. I am a professional historical novelist. I am giving you fore-warning because my review is going to be a little more involved than readers may have read. But, if you bare with me, you will see there is a reason.

    As Berlin fell to the Russians, the Russians committed terrible atrocities, particular toward women and children-supposedly in revenge for the millions of their own people who had died during the Nazi’s failed invasion of Russian territory.

    After the war, the soldiers returned home from the battlefield. Some immediately returned home, while for others it took years to return home from captivity as prisoners of war. They did not know what to do with themselves. Can they find a profession after the military? For some, it was all they knew? For some, they returned to find that the life that they left behind destroyed.

    Many soldiers returned, haunted and shamed by what they had seen during the war. The life that they left behind was gone. Loved ones missing or dead.

    Wickenden researched this book for two years,

    With historical fiction, the characters are directly affected by time and events in which the story takes place. The backstory is more significant because the “Easter Eggs” in the plot are much more meaningful. How the character react to current or past events creates the backstory of a character or allows the reader to become emotionally invested with the characters. It is the history, the backstory, that shape the characters.

    When the author presents the characters with the plot, the plot can be affected by how they respond to current events or incidents from the past. Some authors disagree with me.

    Wickenden has achieved this because of his extensive research. The author draws on the experiences of real life people who lived before, during and after the war, which adds to the believability of the characters. Wickenden was able to describe the characters’ state of mind, or world-build post-WWII with little effort

    The reader is introduced to Max, Tobi, and Bastian. These are the old-timers who have a common history from the war. The three detectives all returned home to discover what had really been happening with their country while they were away. They were each looked upon with disgust. Each man suffers from their demons from the war. In post-war Germany, they find their way to working for the same police department. While seeking a normal life for themselves they still manage to surround themselves with death. Max builds his team of veterans who have seen the horror of war and the violence of the street. A new recruit has joined the department, but will her inexperience get her killed?

    It is 1960, fifteen years after the war. Having rebuilt the city, the “new generation” is enjoying the benefits of the modern western countries. The country is also populated by those who bore witness to the madness of their former leader, and made restitution for the past conflict. Wickeden does a good job at including the minor characters part of the ensemble of a cast.

    A series of heinous murders have occurred. Detective Max Decker and his team must gather the clues together to solve the crime.

    The author introduces a story-arc that alludes to another adventure. This arc was referred to several times in the book, and it is an important part in character-development that should have been explored. The author has written a novella, Girl Hunter, which does tell the backstory within that story arc. What can confuse the reader is that Angel Avenger is marketed as the first book in the series. A reader may not be aware of this novella. Therefore, some attention could have been made to develop enough backstory to open and close that arc.

    These hiccups do not score against my rating of the book. I do intend to read the Girl Hunter. The book engrossed me. And I definitely would read another Max Becker Thriller. I am a big fan of foreign films and TV series that one can watch on PBS’s Masterpiece Mysteries. I could easily see a production of this story and other Max Becker adventures.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Angela Hayes
    4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing!
    Reviewed in Australia on November 30, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    4 Stars

    Angel Avenger: A Max Becker Thriller by Tim Wickenden certainly made me sit up and take notice. It is set in Berlin in the 1960’s, fifteen years after the end of WWII- the events of which are still fresh in the minds of the citizens, and people are still struggling to adjust after what happened. This element of the plot really helped to set the whole mood and tone of the story- giving it a bit of a Nordic Noir/Nordic thriller feel.
    This is a crime fiction woven with historical facts- I can tell that Mr. Wickenden has put a lot of meticulous research into getting the details just right, and this attention to detail definitely shows in this book.
    Detective Max Becker works for the Berlin Police department in the criminal investigation division. He, along with Bastian Dohl and the rest of their team, are called out to the scene of a murder, which has a cryptic message left with it, for them to try and unravel. When the body count starts mounting, they are under a bit of pressure to try and figure it all out- which leads to secrets being uncovered. Unveiling the past will test Max’s sense of duty, and bring up questions about true justice.
    There is a definite unpredictability to the story, even though some things were apparent from very early on. There were surprising developments which I didn’t see coming, and this tension kept me avidly reading- and made it quite gripping in places.
    The story has some violent and gruesome scenes which gives it a bit of a dark undertone- but also adds to the whole “Angel Avenger’ atmosphere.
    Mr. Wickenden has proven to be a talented writer, and certainly knows how to weave an intriguing story. This makes for great reading, but his would also make a superb TV series.
    I Am looking forward to getting my hands on the next book in the series, “Ludkes Game”.

    Thank you, Tim Wickenden.
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  • gwydr
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and exciting thriller that's a bit different
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 9, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    This was a great thriller, really well researched and set in Germany 15 years after the war. All the characters in the book are still heavily affected by the events of the war and it's interesting to ser it written about from such a different perspective. The storyline is gripping - even though we know who the murderers are; I began to empathise with them more and more. The main characters are well defined and will obviously appear again in later books. It's good to see some strong women included, particularly considering the time in which it's set. In fact this book was a real eye-opener for me about life in Germany following the second world war. I do feel this book is easily good enough to be taken up by a mainstream publisher. Hopefully that will the case with the stories that follow this one.
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  • Brian
    4.0 out of 5 stars A griping read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 27, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    A book that's hard to put down but very graphic in portraying brutal acts. These acts are balanced by a justice and caring concern of the main characters. The book is well researched and deals compassionately with a difficult period in German and Soviet history. I look forward to reading more books by this author.
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  • Fiona
    5.0 out of 5 stars An enthralling psychological thriller
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 14, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    Wasn't sure what to expect from this novel, however, wow! what a read! A detective story with guts. Where has this author been hiding? I was transported back to 1960s Berlin and the lives of Max Becker and his team. A great story, very well researched, which moved me deeply in places. I look forward to the next one. Thank you!
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A really intriguing read!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    I love history and this author has captured a part of German history that I didn't know quite so well, and he's done it by creating a captivating story that's raw and heartfelt. Much research must have gone into this book, and it was a pleasure to read. The characters are tough, yet human, and that kept me turning the page! Recommended!
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