Is it crazy to think that you can ›turn back‹ time? Peter Taler certainly thinks so when he first gets wind of what Knupp, the old man who lives opposite him, is planning. Because he wants to make the seemingly impossible, possible. The first thing Taler notices is that strange things are happening in the house opposite, where eighty-year-old Knupp lives. He starts to spy on him and record the goings-on with his camera, but by the time he realises he is being spied on too, he is already tangled up in the events on the other side of the street. Old Knupp, who lost his wife twenty years ago, is convinced that descending like Orpheus into the realm of the dead is not the only way to find your way back to a loved one. And he is not alone in his convictions, sharing this theory with famous minds such as Einstein and Aristoteles. But putting it into practise is not that easy. In fact, it is practically impossible. But this is where Taler comes in.

Small World is a case study, social novel and thriller at one and the same time. Konrad Lang, in his mid-sixties, is suddenly confronted by vivid pictures from his childhood. And the down-at-the-heel old man is drawn as if by magic to the villa of his former »family«, where people are reluctant to remember him. What is he up to? asks above all eighty-year-old Elvira Senn, the incontestable head of the family and grand old lady of the renowned Swiss Koch works. She is irritated by Konrad's growing powers of recollection - and with good reason: Elvira has something to hide. Konrad's childhood and youth were extremely unusual. As the illegitimate child of a maidservant, and playmate - or lackey - of a millionaire's son of the same age, he grew up in the world of the rich without ever being accepted into it. And now the confused old man wants only one thing: to be accepted into the bosom of the family, which did not always treat him well. Elvira Senn believes he is in need of care and takes him in. But as time goes on she feels more and more threatened by Konrad, particularly as he finds, unexpectedly, a protectress among the members of the family. A dramatic race begins, a race against time, against a mysterious illness, and against the old lady's increasing panic. It ends in an almost cheerful finale.

Maravan, 33, a Tamil asylum seeker, is working as a kitchen hand in a top hotel in Zurich, at a level far below his abilities. For Maravan is a gifted and passionate cook. In Sri Lanka his great aunt had introduced him to the art of cooking, and not least into the secrets of aphrodisiac cuisine. When he is fired, his colleague Andrea encourages him into a deal of a very special kind: joint catering for love menus. At first they cook for couples with whom they are put in touch by a sex therapist. But word gets around about the success of Love Food, and a much wealthier clientele starts showing an interest: men from the world of politics and business – and from the grey zones on their margins. Maravan is worried that the business could become ›unsavoury‹ – and indeed it does. But he is in urgent need of the money in order to enable his family back in Sri Lanka to survive.

A highly valuable painting of dahlias by Henri Fantin-Latour has been stolen, and Allmen International Inquiries is commissioned to take on the investigation. This is most definitely a case for private investigator Johann Friedrich von Allmen, his assistant Carlos and his captivating life partner María Moreno, who has been enhancing the duo of late – and no less juicy than the two previous cases. The picture was already stolen property before it exchanged unrightful owners. And the old lady in whose possession it was until recently – Dalia Gutbauer, a very rich heiress and owner of a now slightly run-down luxury hotel – has enough money to simply buy a new Fantin-Latour without making a dent in her fortune. So why is she so attached to the picture? It takes Allmen a long time to see the slippery surface he is investigating, dealing with shady crooks as well as his own kind: experts in not having any money, with more demands than means. But there is one thing which is even more dangerous: aging men with young women.

Two writers offer an insight into their conversations. Whether on a sun lounger or at the bar, by the sea or in the city, these two are fizzing with wit. Everything is potential material for conversation: swimming trunks, weddings, glitter, LSD, cooking, money, birthdays - the more everyday or odd it is, the better! And because no life is purely fun, not even for the famous, the conversations even take a serious turn at times. But only at times.

Bastian Schweinsteiger, the hero of the 2014 World Cup Final in Rio, is also the hero of Martin Suter’s latest novel. The author weaves in true (and almost true) details about the life of a man who achieved everything it is possible to achieve as a footballer. Yet Schweinsteiger also knows what it’s like to fail, and he’s no stranger to the dark side of success. This is the moving story of an extraordinary career – and a touching love story.

Top management salaries – as one would expect – are an inexhaustible subject in these new and latest ›Business Class‹ Stories. And – the second erogenous zone of a manager's identity – the exorbitant yearly bonus they receive. In addition, it is a book about the risks and side effects of launching an April fool prank, and it provides helpful tricks and techniques for the rhetorically challenged executive. It is also about the most closely guarded secret of the corporate world: advertising. About humour as a management tool and – something that calls for humour in itself – the discrepancy between a company's internal and external perception as shown through thorough analysis. And about the beastly consequences of a harmless attack of lumbago. The book also presents packages of measures to get that chronically stressed private life under control once more: work/life balance, quality time and family fitness ... plus many other subjects.

Now things are getting serious: Allmen's International Enquiries has its first major case: An incredibly valuable pink diamond has disappeared, along with a mysterious Russian living in Switzerland and suspected of having stolen it. It is up to Allmen and Carlos to track him down. The trail leads them from London via the run-down outskirts of Zurich to a grand hotel in the German Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm, then back to the garden house in the Schwarzacker Villa in Zurich where things are about to get very awkward . . . A case in which nothing is as it seems, and one of global interest. The Allmen and Carlos duo have to prove just how much they are able to master the art of confidence trickery and understatement – and are up against the professionals.

The Allmen series – over one million copies sold!

The bestselling crime novel series about the gentleman crook Allmen and his assistant Carlos has sold over a million copies in German alone and was first adapted for TV in 2017 by UFA fiction.

In the sixth episode of the stylish series Allmen’s International Enquiries investigates on Ibiza, the Mediterranean island of the super-rich.

An anonymous invitation lures Allmen to an exclusive property in Ibiza. An old man awaits him by a large pond and shows him his valuable many koi. One of the trusting fish – the most valuable one – has disappeared.
Allmen’s International Enquiries receives the brief of finding ›Boy‹, worth almost a million Euro. Allmen and his crew find a way of discreetly accessing the exclusive world of the island’s high society, and gain insight into a peculiar passion for collecting. 

A new selection from the wide range of things that make our everyday business life so trying: petty and less petty intrigues, survival on the directors' floor, the over-conformism of those who have not quite made it to the top, weak power constellations and the timing necessary for loyalty swings.

Noah is an artist in his early 30s. His girlfriend Camillaʼs salary is just about enough for them both to live on. But Camilla wants more from life, and so she breaks up with Noah. Sheʼs following her head rather than her heart, but if she doesnʼt take charge of her future now, when will she? Noah is willing to do anything to win back his lost love. When an elderly woman offers him the chance of making a fortune, he ventures into a dubious deal with her.

Allmen meets a cultured gentleman of around his age in a bar – Adrian Weynfeldt. His family name, of course, is one the art detective is familiar with. Their encounter marks the beginning of an unusual friendship. A short while later, when Weynfeldt notices a picture is missing from his collection, he consults Allmen. Weynfeldt’s eccentric circle of friends seems reluctant to talk, all except the bookseller who specialises in art titles. But before long, she’s no longer able to, and Allmen is facing his first murder case.

Jonas Brand has no idea about the adventure that awaits him, when the intercity train comes to an abrupt halt. The train is unable to continue because of a dead body on the tracks. Brand immediately shoulders his camera, records the nightmarish events and interviews his fellow passengers. He is a freelance journalist, but one who dreams of bigger things. He wants to make films, and his project ›Montecristo‹, a story of betrayal, deception and late revenge, has blockbuster potential – if only someone would give him a chance. When he falls in love with Marina Ruiz, who charms him into revealing his dream, the project steps back into his focus. Just three months later, fate deals him another bizarre card: two onehundred Swiss Franc notes with identical serial numbers – both of which, as the bank confirms with amazement, are genuine. Then Brand’s apartment is ransacked and he gets beaten up and robbed in broad daylight. Someone clearly wants to throw him off the track that he is just about to embark on.

An edge-of-the-seat thriller and a great novel about the world we live in, about people on the margins of society and about those who speculate on big money.

A creature that enchants people: a small pink elephant that glows in the dark like an alien. Only one person knows where it comes from: the genetic scientist Roux. He has big plans for this global sensation. Or is it something sacred that must be hidden and protected? That’s what Kaung thinks, a Burmese elephant-whisperer who was present at the animal’s birth. An exploration of borderline territories, in more ways than one.

Although Martin Suter and Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre like to celebrate life, from time to time they also turn their attention to serious matters — in the form of existential events. In this volume, they want and need to ask themselves the big, ultimate questions; yet they see it as a question of style to never deny themselves a punch line. Humour as a survival strategy, and laughter as a release — these two writers show us how it's done.

The second instalment of the conversations between two unlikely friends - tackling existential topics with an unflinchingly comic gaze.