It is Vienna at the beginning of the last century, and Dr Max Liebermann is a young psychoanalyst - and disciple of Freud. Psychoanalysis is only just developing and viewed with a mixture of intrigue and suspicion. The world of 1900s Vienna is one where philosophy, science and art are at their most exciting and flourishing, with the coffee shops full of men and women debating the latest cultural and political theories. Liebermann's good friend Oskar Rheinhardt is a Detective Inspector - hard working, but lacking Liebermann's insights and forensic eye. So it is through Rheinhardt that Liebermann is called upon to help with police investigations surrounding the death of a beautiful young medium, in what seems at first to be supernatural circumstances.
"We’re in 1902 Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire . When a medium is found shot in a room that has been locked from the inside, with no sign of a gun or even a bullet, it is tempting to treat it as a supernatural mystery. But Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt continues to look for a rational explanation, calling on his friend Dr Max Liebermann to help look for motives and build a profile of the murderer. The author, himself a psychologist, has made Dr Liebermann a student of Freud and an early practitioner of psychoanalysis. Early 20th-century Vienna, at the forefront of cultural and scientific development, is a fabulous setting for our music-loving detective and doctor duo to use forensic science and psychology to help solve a seemingly impossible mystery. This is the first volume of The Liebermann Papers , which has been turned into a television series."
