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.

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.

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.

She may not be beautiful, but she can cook and lend a hand. That's why Lorina has become a carer to the elderly, and she's hit the jackpot with her appointment at the Alsfelder Villa - where there's an endless coming and going of attractive massage therapists and affairs occur that are better kept secret. Further excitement is supplied by an imposed poodle and an abandoned baby, which visibly cheer up the old lady in Lorina's care. Much to the disapproval of her great-nephew, who is waiting in the wings for his inheritance.

These unforgettable stories grant insights into an impressive life, a writer’s work and aging, showing a very personal side of the ›Grande Dame‹ of German crime fiction – funny, affectionate, wicked.

The entire Ingrid Noll gamut in short-story form: her criminal wit, her warm-hearted life experience, her down-to-earth gift of observation. In this book, there’s a cherry on top: autobiographical writing, resonant and impressive. A letter to her deceased mother, the role of her father. How she fell in love with her first grandchild. The first years of her life in China. How she would like her last 24 hours to play out. What annoys her about getting old.

»I am made of two different dreams.«
Ingrid Noll

A lovingly concerned, ironic, and dark crime tragedy on the question of why some treasures are better left undiscovered, and why not every end justifies the means.

»Many of our fellow students look like bankers, neat and tidy, boring, and conventional. Not a trace of opposition, all working hard, and striving for good degrees and lucrative jobs.«

Five young people want to show our throwaway society how to do better: Aunt Emma’s old farmhouse won’t be demolished but turned into an alternative student house. Except for one thing – the necessary renovations cost money. Then a sack of valuable gold coins turns up at Emma’s junk shop. But the treasure doesn’t spell the end of their problems. Instead, it leads them into more trouble, introducing them to the less attractive impulses of the human heart.

In this zany mixture of crime comedy and spy novel the grand dame of German crime literature has her heroines spy in both their private and professional lives.

Karin and Holda are on a manhunt; after all, they do not want to be left on the shelf. But someone is hunting for them, too: in post-war Bonn, a very particular kind of Romeo is on their trail. Big politics encounters the longing for a little bit of happiness. Tally-Ho – the life of the two friends becomes an adventure, boring everyday life is a thing of the past. Woe betides he who comes into their sights . . .

A journey through time and into the minds of young women in the 1950s.

Nelly just got rid of Matthew. But being a thirty-something single mum, she has to find a way to earn some extra money. Luckily, she has plenty of space and a talent for cooking, so Nelly invites paying guests over to her house for lunch. Among the few women are more interesting men: a captain, who has not been at sea in ages, a very tanned sports instructor, an insurance salesman and an equally handsome and smart electrician. Unfortunately, the latter does not turn up alone. The good thing is though, that his better half suffers from a nut allergy... Ingrid Noll cooks up something special, where she mingles with people as well as with ingredients.

Terminally ill, childless widower Wolfram makes an offer to his former colleague Karla: If she agrees to take care of his funeral and gravestone, she will inherit a quarter of his fortune. If she cares for him until his death, she will inherit half, and if she kills him at his request, she will get everything, a nineteenth-century villa included.
Til Greed Does Us Part is about the overwhelming desire for more, which leads even a humble woman like the former librarian Karla to engage in monkey business.

A ramshackle old villa, money worries, an aged mother, two daughters with unsuitable boyfriends, a badly paid, boring job at the residents' registration office – that is how Ellen's daily life looks. Divorced and getting on in years, her future seems to have lost its rosy glow. Only a fairy-tale prince can save her, but Ellen does not believe in miracles. Then a good-looking man turns up, claiming to be her half-brother. Following some genetic tests, astonishing family secrets are unearthed. The invitation to join a Mediterranean cruise should help them to get to know one another better, and for Ellen it promises to be the experience of a lifetime. But the illusion of a last great love ends up going overboard ... and it is not alone.

A treacherous tumble and Willy Knobel, almost ninety-years-old, is hospital-bound. The prognosis is bad: the doctors expect he has only a few weeks left. In spite of his son Harald's loud protests, his daughter-in-law Petra insists that the old man be cared for by them in their home. It will not be for long anyway. Who could have foreseen Max's vanilla pudding regime making his grandfather fighting fit again. The better the patient feels, however, the more Harald and Petra's life begins to unravel. While the pair of them ponder how they can decently get rid of the disturber of their peace, Max flirts with the carer, Jenny. She, however, has a dark secret. In this bitter-sweet comedy, Ingrid Noll shows that ideal families are as rare as any holy family. But also that there are beautiful moments to be had in human encounters, regardless of age.

Mama's baby – papa's maybe? ›Cuckoo's Child‹ is a story about three paternity tests, a pregnancy test, a baby in a laundry basket, a few dead persons and unconventional family bliss in a nest which, though entirely unfamiliar, is nonetheless rather cosy. »A little house with a garden, a happy marriage and above all two children, those were my goals in life«, Anja, a teacher in her late thirties thinks to herself. Far from having reached her goals, she is stuck in a ›rat hole‹ as she calls the lodging into which she fled following her divorce. When her colleague Birgit becomes pregnant, Anja can't help suspecting the child was conceived by her own ex-husband. She persuades Birgit's husband secretly to undergo a paternity test. The side effects are potentially dangerous… With an equal portion of humour and insight into the slings and arrows of nest-building, ›Cuckoo's Child‹ depicts family constellations which are anything but boring and common. In the process she shows that the road to happiness is not always straight and smooth.

»We could smuggle, steal, deal drugs, murder, break in to houses, blackmail and kidnap as often as we pleased, nobody would ever suspect us. Nobody would be able to provide the police with our description, because it has been years since anyone has really looked at us. We, the grey brigade, are the invisible ghost army of the nation.« It is unladylike thoughts such as these that run through the mind of 73-year-old Lore. In her old age, she lives with her best friend Anneliese. They have known each other since they were ten, but now they have moved even closer together: a two-woman household. Lore's husband has started a relationship with a younger woman, while Anneliese's has unfortunately passed away. Together the two ladies hang on to their old memories. Just when it appears that their new life is getting off to a gentle and demure start, along comes Ewald, Anneliese's childhood sweetheart, whom they both met long ago at dancing lessons. Naturally, he has not spent his life alone either. In fact, he is a somewhat more lively than his two old girlfriends would like. With her familiar humour, Ingrid Noll depicts the kind of surprises that the last period of life has to offer. The age of hair-buns and humility is over – now seniors run around in their sneakers. And if their own children don't take care of them, they take in a couple of students...

There is a Spanish saying, »The tongue is like a dagger in the flesh.« But what happens when a mother and son speak in false tongues, deceiving each other at every turn? Ingrid Noll's Collected Short Stories relate the tales of unusual mothers and peculiar men. How did the virgin give birth to a child? The book begins with a retelling of the story of Christmas. A conservative dominatrix, an unhappy mother, an amorous dog, a carnival souvenir and an unusual half-sister narrate the joys and suffering of motherhood. The men too display unexpected talents, whether it be collecting autographs, fishing, knitting sweaters, inviting home their female students – or even bumping off their wives in elegant fashion. Malicious pleasures bring variety into everyday drudgery, and unexpected presents lead to an ill-fated Christmas…

There is no love lost between dreamy Paul and his lively younger brother Achim. Indeed, everlasting peace does not exactly prevail when the family comes together in the family home in Mainz after Father's funeral. As the old saying goes - as God brings death to a man, so the Devil reunites his heirs! An inscrutable mother, two vastly dissimilar brothers and a disagreeable daughter-in-law find themselves in the family home in Mainz after the funeral of the hypochondriac father, who has departed this world. They have not seen each other for some time, with good reason, and the old squabbles resurface almost immediately. Was the old man's departure really of natural causes? The brothers – Paul and Achim – create wild fantasies on the theme, while daughter-in-law Annette gambles with her marriage. In her new novel, Ingrid Noll is as sensitive and as pitiless as never before. Complicated women and morbid men: ›Rabenbrüder‹ come from a family in which everyone creates obstacles for the rest. This is Ingrid Noll at her dark and narrative best!