Torsten Krol is a fairly new writer, but he's caused positive waves since his arrival with the novel The Dolphin People. Since then he's also published Callisto, and he has not done any public appearances. There are some rumors he might be another author hiding behind a pseudonym, but there is no proof of that so far. The Dolphin People has recently been released as a paperback. Set post-World War II, it features a family of former Nazi-sympathizers who go on a journey in Venezuela. After a horrible accident they are forced to live with natives of the jungle.
Erich is the teenage protagonist of The Dolphin People, a 16-year-old German whose father just died while serving in the Nazi army. His uncle Klaus decided to do the right thing for the family by offering to marry his brother's widow. Erich and his little brother Zeppi fly to Venezuela with their mother and attend the small, private wedding ceremony. Klaus is a handsome and well spoken man, supposedly a doctor, who changes the family name since they might be on lists of wanted Nazis. He buys a plane trip out to a new job, but the plane crashes on the way there and only the four of them survive. Not long after, as they wait for rescue, they are found by naked and dangerous-looking natives who escort them to the village in the jungle.
There they meet another white man, an intellectual named Gerhard, who has been with the tribe for many years. He tells them that the natives believe they are dolphin spirits turned into humans, and they had better play along if they wanted to live. Erich finds this something of an adventure, slowly starting to get comfortable in his new surroundings by shedding his own clothes and befriending the hunters. He finds love (or lust) with a native girl, learns a disturbing secret about his little brother Zeppi, starts to understand where the Nazi party went wrong, and watches his mother's sanity slowly drain away. By the end of the book Erich is changed, no longer the arrogant and brainwashed boy he once was, and with family ripped to shreds he must learn to decide for himself what is right.
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