Dr. Martin Gänsewein sees dead people. He certainly should because as coroner for the city of Cologne, autopsies are routine for him. But Martin’s latest examination of the late Sascha Lerchenberg, a small-time car thief, takes a turn when the deceased starts to talk to him following the autopsy. Pascha, as he prefers to be called, is convinced he was murdered and his ghost plans to hang out around morgue drawer four until he and the good doctor can solve the mystery of his death.


Pascha's last job was to steal a gleaming Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren for a car smuggler. The 24-year-old thief is savvy about his business and, as a routine, he checked the McLaren’s interior before handing it over. The wad of cash he took, of course. But the body of a woman in the trunk was more of a problem. “You don’t hand a car smuggler a car with a corpse in the trunk, not even if it’s an SLR,” he says. But before Pascha had time to dispose of the body, he is pushed from a railroad bridge later that night. 


Now Martin is the only one to whom Pascha’s ghost can talk to, a situation equally disliked by the scruffy low-life (but surprisingly intelligent) thief, and the polite, staid doctor whose idea of a good time is grinding his own coffee beans. The odd-couple pairing of Pascha and Martin is fodder for lots of humor, but German author Jutta Profijt skillfully makes Morgue Drawer Four not only funny, but an insightful look at class and culture clashes, all wrapped in a sturdy plot that is part hardboiled, part heist caper, and enhanced throughout by lively dialogue.

Martin and Pascha's investigation takes them to Cologne’s seediest neighborhoods, including a red-light district, and some of its most upscale areas, while they navigate the world of German car smuggling. Pascha and Martin’s distrust of each other eventually gives way to a begrudging respect as each learns they are not so different from each other. Morgue Drawer Four, the first of Profijt’s series, was shortlisted for Germany’s 2010 Friedrich Glauser Prize for best crime novel and is just now making its US debut.