A young woman called Lina Verde is searching the craggy, steep cliffs of Capri for a rare orchid. Soon afterwards, Zeno the fisherman finds her lifeless body. He claims that he and Lina were a couple, but he doesn’t even know her address. Did he kill her? Zeno is a notorious liar who presents himself as a sociable Capri fisherman, at least to female tourists. The island police officers Enrico Rizzi and Antonia Cirillo believe him to be capable of anything, but a perfumer leads them onto a new trail. Was Lina really just looking for a flower?

Their methods are agile, they are proactive and present lasting and scalable solutions – top managers live in a different sphere. Up where the air is thin, and a single faux pas can mean tumbling into the abyss. But now women are finding their way into the tie-wearers’ habitat, and remote work, so beloved among employees, is making leadership appear to be all mouth and no trousers. The challenges are becoming ever more diverse. Who can still be trusted, and who can’t? The top squad is losing its grip.

Charlie is fifteen years old and misses her father, especially since her mother’s new boyfriend came onto the scene. And as if that weren’t enough, her best friend has just kissed the boy she has a crush on. For a while now, it feels like there’s been a glass wall between Charlie and the world. Then, Pommes shows up, his real name is Kornelius — and he turns that glass wall into a car window that can be rolled down, so that Charlie can finally stretch her hand up toward the sky again.

Luisa, 15, who was adopted from Peru as a baby, has a sheltered upbringing with affluent parents. She has a special gift: Luisa can see in the dark. When she encounters a young homeless man in the nearby woods, she takes him to her heart. Tim relies on her help and her willingness to conceal him, because he has every reason to remain invisible. Luisa’s gift turns her into an accomplice, entangling her in a web of lies and crime that becomes harder and harder to escape.

The far north of Iceland, around the turn of the nineteenth century. With his rope ferry, Jón Magnússon Ósmann transports people, animals and wares across the waters of the Skagafjord. He’s a fisherman and a seal hunter who sees ghosts and elves; a friend of all mankind who cares for and shelters those in need; and he’s also a God-fearing drinker and poet. Larger-than-life, strong and companionable, and yet so tormented by his own fate that the floods he has sailed for over forty years begin to lure him in. Bursting with life, this is an almost unbelievable story based on a real life.

»In the hands of great authors, characters are like real people, merely realer«, Donna Leon once said. Perhaps this is why her life is so rich in characters and people accompanying her, both real and fictional.

Backstage presents a colorful troupe: the rock genius Frank Zappa, Veniceʼs most famous diamond dealer, a courageous sex worker and womenʼs rights activist, a clever composer, tragic heroes and admired colleagues. In the hands of Donna Leon, these encounters turn into sparkling jewels. A treasure trove of delightful discoveries.

One morning, a man arrives dead in the chairlift on Monte Solaro. Someone must have shot at him from the sun-scorched Macchia below. The first clue leads to an olive grove; one that conceals an old secret. While the Naples criminal investigation department send a specialised search team, the island police officers Enrico Rizzi und Antonia Cirillo stumble across extravagant ideas regarding valuable olive oil in this, their latest case – and across a tree with a variety of olive that grows only on Capri. One for which some people would kill.

The renowned Dutch brain surgeon Jaap Hollander has retired, but still can’t find peace. Ever since his daughter disappeared in Israel ten years ago, he has returned each year to where it happened.
This time, he is unexpectedly asked during the trip to carry out an incredibly risky brain operation. He agrees, even though the chances of success are minimal, because not only the life of his powerful patient depends on it, but perhaps also a new clue leading to his daughter’s whereabouts.
 

The history of the >Magic Mountain< in its entirety: from the early days of Davos, via Thomas Mann, to the World Economic Forum. An expansive panorama of 20th Century history.

A lovesick narrator journeys with his daughter to snowy Davos. Their ›family vacation‹ becomes an enjoyable meditation on the effects of the modern age, skiing and the tuberculosis pandemic. Ohler also explores how a poor mountain village became the symbol of global wealth. And, just like in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, the truly difficult questions emerge amid the masses of snow: In what way do our ways of life need to change? And what kind of world are we passing on to our children?

Shards of glass lay across Piazza San Marco. Two ›baby gangs‹ have clashed violently in the darkness. While Commissario Griffoni relies on her intuition to find out how a teenager can get caught up in a flash mob, Brunetti uses his own connections. Even Vice-Questore Patta is willing to do whatever it takes to protect himself and his surroundings from any violence – which is especially unwelcome in a tourist city like Venice.

Irma, 40, has transformed the ›Zum Hirschen‹ inn into the popular vegetarian restaurant ›Aubergine‹. The creative proprietress employs a motley crew: a 17-year-old school truant as her Girl Friday; a gossipy commis chef; a former globetrotter as waiter and manager. And the 80-year-old ›vegetable man‹, who helps to prep the vegetables and is believed to be almost deaf. And like in any close-knit community, it’s not all sunshine; there’s conflict too.

Fourteen-year-old Billie rarely crosses the boundaries of her high-rise housing estate. By the end of the month their money barely stretches to pasta with ketchup, but her mother, Marika, lights up Billie’s world with her imagination and big heart. One day, however, they receive an unwelcome visit from her Hungarian grandmother, and Billie loses much more than the colourful everyday life she shared with her mother. No longer able to ask Marika any more questions, Billie sets off alone in their old Nissan – she is determined to meet the father she never knew and find out why she keeps dreaming about the sea, even though she’s never been there.

»The beginning was the last day before the summer holidays.
The beginning was a song on the radio.
The beginning was big plans.«
Elena Fischer

On a cold November evening, Guido Brunetti and Paola are up late when a call from Ispettore Vianello arrives, alerting the Commissario that a hand has been spotted in one of Venice’s canals. The body is quickly recovered and the victim’s identity discovered by sheer coincidence. But who could the dead man’s enemies have been? He was undocumented, leaving Brunetti and his colleagues with no leads to chase up. It’s only when the Commissario delves into his own past, recalling the Italy of his student days, that a solution to the case starts to emerge.

In a villa on Zurich’s hillside lives aging Dr Stotz, surrounded by portraits of a young woman. Melody was once his fiancée, but shortly before the wedding – more than forty years ago – she vanished. Stotz has never recovered from his loss.

To organise his estate, Stotz hires a young student who urgently needs this job. Little by little, Tom begins to wonder whether Stotz is really who he pretends to be.
On a Greek island, he stumbles across a peculiar trail.

Friends Nina and Franziska live in the same building on the market square in a small town in southwest Germany. In a fit of champagne-induced enthusiasm, they and four other women found the ›Nutters’ Club‹, based on the idea that there is something odd about each one of them. 
When Nina loses her handbag, she makes the fateful acquaintance of Andreas Haase. Not satisfied with the usual finder’s fee, he wants more – and Nina will need to rely on her best friend more than ever before.