A satirical thriller about democratic political culture, but also a fascinating novel about the unequal lives of two sisters and a dramatic chapter of German history. And it is also the comforting story of an ageing man who finds it difficult to keep pace with his much younger and more active wife.

Summer 1928, 32 degrees in the shade. Two respectable citizens in a small town on the Rhine perpetrate a bank robbery. They bury their booty, gold ingots to the value of nearly one and a half million marks at today's rate, under a plum-tree and prepare to wait until it is safe to claim their treasure. But it seems this time will never come… Leo Theisen, a widely travelled retired journalist, is a brilliant story-teller who constantly surprises his niece Maria with new and exciting anecdotes. But Leo appears to be completely infatuated with one of his stories about a »family treasure« – in which he claims to be both the son and the nephew of the alleged bank robbers –, much to the annoyance of Maria, who believes the story to be a product of his imagination. Maria determines to prove to the self-confident Leo that his story cannot be true and, gold or no gold, she sets out to refute the myth of the buried treasure and the old stories of guilt, negligence and missed opportunities – and finds herself entangled in a web of tragi-comic events which turn her life upside-down. A nicely rounded, deadly comical novel, full of anecdotes and self-ironical ideas which pose the question to end all questions: the question of man's ability to understand the world, of the reliability of memories, and our capacity for acknowledging guilt.

A very young woman meets Kamp who gave up all hope in life a long time ago. Kamp is unemployed and, in accordance with the law, he will soon have early retirement status. Kamp cannot understand why Claudia should keep visiting him. He suspects that an evil, criminal plan is at the bottom of it all, and when Claudia goes into hiding once again, he sees that as proof of his suspicions. Kamp decides to bury his foolish hopes once and for all and instead to prepare for death. But Claudia comes back and the story of this unusual, even impossible relationship takes a turn very different from what Kamp expected.

He had ticked his educational trip through beautiful Georgia off his list a long time ago. And also the hospitality offered by David Ninoschwili and his attractive partner, Matassi, who, however, had proved herself to be exceptionally obliging. He seems to remember that he had only just avoided great danger at that time. He, i.e. the committed senior teacher, Christian Kestner, happily married to a successful lawyer, the not so happy father of a son who recently has been fraternising with extreme right wing circles. The past catches up with Kestner seven years later: In the meantime there is civil war in Georgia and Ninoschwili announces his arrival in the West. Where will he live? According to the rules of Georgian hospitality with the person that he had put up in his home at an earlier date: Kestner. The family's reaction is one of open rejection. Kestner assures them it will only be for two, three weeks - and is completely mistaken. Their Georgian guest takes up mysterious activities and develops a great liking for Kestner's wife. The senior teacher's vivid imagination is triggered off, he begins to shadow the foreigner and to plot and scheme against him …

When the renowned author Carl Wallot travels to Merzthal for a book reading, the local inhabitants do not exactly afford him a hospitable welcome. But wooed by the lovely Susanne, Wallot ends up staying longer than he had originally planned. The events he witnesses in the provincial town seem increasingly odd to him. For example, Susanne's marriage to the much older Keppler, the owner of a large factory and patron of Merzthal, a benefactor whose record is not entirely clean. The cosmopolitan Wallot, who ridicules the parochial patriotism of the Merzthalers, their pride in their native town, and feels himself far superior to them, begins to snoop around and soon sniffs out provocative material for a provincial roman à clef. At least that is the suspicion of the narrator, Jörg Froberger, a young and talented local journalist who knows his way around Merzthal and, moreover, observes everything that happens to Susanne with a loving, jealous eye. But the writer has not reckoned on the reaction of the inhabitants of Merzthal. A psychologically intense novel about the sinister entanglement of money, power and emotion.

An old man, dreadfully lonely, and a rejected will. A Porsche driver with a colourful past in an awkward situation. The god-like splendour of professors. Old age, growing old and being old. The notion of homeland and a West Germany which sprang from a strange act of creation. The convents and bridges of Cologne – and their role in history. Plus sharp-eyed portraits of such very different individuals as the newspaper publisher Alfred Neven DuMont, the radical feminist Alice Schwarzer, and Helmut Thoma – a media mogul and his rivals. Or a life »at the service of humour«, in honour of Willy Millowitsch on his 85th birthday. But also people who are not famous, like the ›housekeeper‹, for whom read ›brothel madam‹. And much more ...

Such shockingly realistic words can only flow from the pen of someone who knows what he is talking about: Hans Werner Kettenbach, for many years the political editor of a large Cologne daily, takes aim at provincial German politics. Faber is a freelance feature journalist. Yet secretly he yearns to make political headlines. He also works as an editor for a small publisher. One day, he gets his hands on a manuscript that looks al lot like a ›roman à clef‹: Someone, a political insider, has much to tell about scandals in highest government circles. Faber starts researching the matter, tentatively at first, becoming more audacious with increasing self-confidence. Prominent politicians, of course, don't remain passive for long...

Uli Wehmeier's whole life is called into question. His wife can no longer cope with his obsession for his work as a copywriter. In the advertising agency, he feels more and more constricted and suffocated because the new creative director bullies him. Wehmeier reacts in his own way: he toys with the idea of murder, as if that could remove the threat to his existence. In his clear, unadorned language, Hans Werner Kettenbach tells the story of how Uli Wehmeier thinks through every detail of his plan – and how his realisation that he has no way out comes too late.

The moment Lilly Hanebeck entered the small auditorium, Hans Schumann knew that something had happened. A German architect, Schumann is about to give a speech at a symposium in Savannah, Georgia. Lilly Hanebeck is not his wife, but that of his friend Roland. From this moment on Roland and Schumann's fiancée, Charlotte, disappear without trace – in America's most haunted city. Two couples intertwining, a major international contract worth millions, a city set against a backdrop of exotic flora and old haunted houses, enchanted love and black magic in the heart of Voodoo country, the dark side of American history – a host of ingredients that completely bewilder the imagination, and more, of the established architect Schumann. ›A Visit to Dr. Buzzard‹ is a rollercoaster ride of emotions and speculation, a subtropical midsummer night's dream for the 21st century.

29-year-old solicitor Alexander Zabel realises too late what he has let himself in for with this client: Herbert Klofft, in his late seventies, founder and owner of »Klofft Valves« is an autocrat, despot and macho. Now bound to a wheelchair, he has fired a young top employee without notice or compensation – an entirely justified move, as he sees it; completely unacceptable in the eyes of his former employee who was also his mistress and who is intent on suing Klofft for damages. An act of personal revenge, agrees Klofft's wife Cilly, an attractive woman in her seventies with a still rather active sex life. Zabel not only sees a lawsuit coming, in which the other party has the better cards in any case, but he is also beginning to understand that he is dealing with a client belligerent enough to manipulate the evidence if necessary. And he is faced with a wife who makes good use of her still considerable erotic charm to beguile the young man.