From the son of a guest-worker to a powerful building contractor – the comet-like rise and fall of Massimo Marini. Smuggled into Switzerland in a suitcase as a baby, he was kept hidden by his parents for eight years so they would not lose their work permit. His father slogged his way up to the echelons of successful business-men – all for Massimo's sake so that he should have it easier. Massimo's life does not follow the smoothest of courses and is peppered with incident, peaks and troughs: from Italian immigrant child to big cheese in Zurich society; from protestor outside the opera house to opera house patron; from existential philosopher to building contractor; from the left to the right; from abysses to glittering heights; from the south to the north. Until he meets the woman who will be the crowning glory of his happiness – and its destroyer. A wide-reaching panorama of society and the portrait of a sparkly, eccentric personality.

Questions that everyone has to ask themselves at least once in life. Whether it be as a discrete way of getting to know oneself better or as an amusing game to play in company. Questions that provoke amusement, questions that get under your skin. Unexpected, devious questions which question themselves in turn, like in a kaleidoscope. Questions which are guaranteed to stir things up: on the way of the world, love, sex, success, career, death, God and happiness.

Wine and hors d'oeuvres reflect the lively atmosphere at the office as the company awaits the return of its brilliant head of marketing, Gehrer, from Harvard. And today is his 35th birthday! Gehrer has indeed arrived at Zurich airport, but he was not on the plane from Boston. He has been in India. And on this cold February day, he is not sitting in his office, but on a bench by the lake, taking stock, engaged in a monologue of disarming accuracy. What does life's zenith have in store? Who is he, at 35? And why does everything suddenly seem so different? Then the insight: there is nothing Gehrer would like more than to rid himself of Gehrer, to become someone else. And here his problem begins. Rolf Dobelli's prose is racy and funny. His gift for observation and his discerning intellect – at times poetic, ironic and sarcastic – are reminiscent of Max Frisch.

Philipp Himmelreich's transfer to New York could not have come at a better time: with one stroke, he is able to save his marriage and escape the clutches of a passionate affair with the young bookseller Josephine. In the plane, at an altitude of 30,000 feet, Philipp finally manages to clear his mind again. And so he indulges, one last time, in a myriad of delightful fantasies. I am free to imagine it now, because I can - because there is no danger that the affair with Josephine will ever be repeated. At least, that is what Himmelreich believes. He revels in his romantic imagination: instead of boarding his flight to New York, he is kidnapped at Zurich airport by Josephine. As her hostage, he is forced to travel across Europe in a VW van and then to sail for weeks across the Atlantic to the New World. And gradually, he is transformed into the very opposite of himself. His existence is New York appears undisturbed by all of this, his successes as a banker, his life with his wife Anna, who has found her way back to his heart. Then, completely out of the blue, he is summonsed by the FBI: Josephine has been reported missing – and there is compelling evidence that Himmelreich has abducted her. All of a sudden, fantasy takes the upper hand and begins, in a startling manner, to turn his life on its head. A masterly tale, at once astute and poetic.