Book tip: "Heaven's Gate" by Daniel Fassbender - new surf noir thriller

Unfortunately, good books about surfing are few and far between - and in this case, "surfing" mainly means surfing. Let's cover the few attempts to write a novel with a windsurfing background with a merciful cloak of silence. As far as surfing literature is concerned, authors such as Alan C. Weisbecker, Daniel Douane, Kem Nunn or the Boone Daniels stories by Don Winslow are the benchmark when it comes to entertaining and successful publications.

With "Heaven's Gate", another surf novel is being published these days that would like to join this list. Author Daniel Faßbender is a surfer himself, and his new novel is the first in a series centred around the main character Caruso. Hopes are obviously high at the renowned Diogenes publishing house, with "Heaven's Gate" emblazoned on the cover of the spring programme.

Drug swamp in surfer's paradise

Where the main character's name comes from and what his real name is remains just as obscure as Caruso's background. All we know is that he is a former professional surfer from Germany who is stranded on the Philippine island of Surogao and works there as a private detective. Behind this is Siargao, the "surf capital of the Philippines", whose abysses beyond the backpacker and surfer romance set the stage for the story.

Incidentally, there is hardly any surfing in the 291 pages - after the session at the beginning, which gets him into a lot of trouble, Caruso barely makes it to the beach. And the battle for the best waves quickly becomes a trifle in view of the central narrative thread. Because the supposedly banal assignment of tracking down the son of a rich Spanish woman who has disappeared soon leads Caruso into the highest circles and makes him a target of the local drug mafia. On the other side of the world, an expert on "substances" also gets caught up in the maelstrom of events in Hamburg: Diego, an ex-smuggler and ex-pimp freshly released from prison, who is well past his prime but still has a connection to the events in the Philippines.

Caruso as a surfing hardboiled detective

Faßbender's inspiration for Caruso came from the classics among the hardboiled characters - typical failed existences who have little connection to normal life and take a beating in every respect, but still have a good heart somewhere alongside their criminalistic brilliance. And just like Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade or Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe, Caruso has a dark spot in his past, a kink in his life that has washed him to this place.

Faßbender hardly leaves out any other hardboiled clichés. Pithy remarks, drinking bouts and womanising are just as much a part of it as Caruso's refusal to keep his hands off the case, no matter how great the danger. This is accompanied by the appearance of invulnerability. When normal people would surrender to their hangovers, Caruso downs a "counter beer" and carries on. Even beaten up and on the brink of death, he remains tough in captivity. He only shows a soft core towards his landlady's daughters and the hacker "Yahoo".

But because all of this is part of the basic formula, the narrative of "Heaven's Gate" never feels flat, but always a little tongue-in-cheek. The "wonderfully rocked-out investigator", as Takis Würger describes Caruso in his quote on the blurb, certainly has potential for entertaining sequels. However, it remains to be seen whether the character and author can join the ranks of the surfing classics listed at the beginning. That may also depend on which path Caruso takes after the end of his first case. We are curious!

More info at diogenes.ch