A troop of Red Army soldiers disappears without a trace, in the heart of Kyiv, while visiting a banya, a traditional Ukrainian bathhouse. When Samson discovers fragments of bone in the banya’s furnace, he uncovers a sinister conspiracy. In this third volume of the series about kindhearted Samson and quickwitted Nadezhda, the Ukrainian master of absurd storytelling vividly depicts a Kyiv filled with political turbulence and eccentric characters — and draws playful parallels with the present day.

Samson and his colleague Kholodnyi are supposed to be investigating the sale of illegal meat. Yet they have hardly even begun when Samson’s girlfriend Nadezhda is abducted by striking railroad workers. Samson, of course, sets about trying to free her.
But what are the railroad workers up to? And why has the shadowy Chekist Abyazov been assigned to the police? Samson must get to the bottom of it all if he wants to solve the case and rescue Nadezhda.

The little hedgehog is back! In the autumn he likes sunbathing on a hill and watching the people in the village. When he returns to his treestump house, he finds three bags full of little apples – but what he thinks is a gift from the grey mouse soon turns out to be the red squirrel’s stockpile of food for the winter. Still, that doesn't matter, because the forest has plenty of gifts to go around. A celebration of autumn colours and a homage to friendship. 

In the tumultuous wake of the Russian Revolution, the young, recently orphaned Samson finds himself almost accidentally signed up to the new Soviet police force in Kyiv. His first case is a perplexing mystery involving a severed ear, a bone made of pure silver and a decidedly unusual suit tailored from fine English cloth. Luckily, Samson meets the ingenious Nadezhda, who aids him in his investigation.

Old photos that inspire the imagination of the contemporary viewer in a captivating way. Veering from strange to touching, they continually pose the question: What on earth was going on? Klaus Cäsar Zehrer was inspired by pictures like these to create short stories, scenes and poems – from tender to ruthless, from poetic to unreservedly silly. And Shakespeare’s 155th love sonnet is in there too.

The little hedgehog is sad. The other animals are constantly being petted: the dogs, the cats, the hares and the horses. He's the only one that no one strokes. But one day he meets a clever field mouse who shows him that we're all lovable just as we are. And that sometimes it's a wonderful thing to be wild and free.

Whether it’s on the ostrich farm, at the gym, the currywurst stand or the beach, in this hidden object book you'll find countless people, animals and little stories on every page – and in their midst, Hazel Brugger and Thomas Spitzer. For their series Deutschland Was Geht, these two comedians visited bizarre locations and events all over the country. Children will love this hidden object book, and fans will find familiar locations and details.

When honey tastes of war.

Grey Bees is a novel about a war that has almost been forgotten, a novel full of atmosphere and wisdom, which forces the reader to slow down, reminding him of what matters most: preserving the integrity of nature.

Beekeeper Sergey lives in Donbass, where Ukrainian fighters and pro-Russian separatists exchange gunfire on a daily basis. He survives by following the motto: Hear nothing, see nothing – stay out of it. His only concern is the well-being of his bees. Because the bees’ world continues to be ruled by intelligent order and wonderful productivity while mankind wreaks havoc. One spring, he sets off: He wants to bring the bees to a region where they can collect nectar in peace.

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. 

In Lviv, a multi-ethnic town in Galicia, strange things are happening. And it’s not to do with the aged hippies who are gathering around a mysterious grave in the cemetery by night. Nor about the former KGB-man who wants to apologise to the people he spied on. And nor is it about the fact that a young woman with an allergy to money is working in the ›bureau de change‹. And it’s certainly not about the ancient Opel Vectra racing at full speed over the cobblestones to cure patients with kidney stones. No, in Lviv, far stranger things are happening. Seagulls are circling in the sky, the air smells salty: it seems as though the town, situated far inland in the West of the Ukraine, is being haunted by the sea ... In Andrej Kurkow’s Lviv, miracles can happen in every little side street and on every street corner. And that’s all down to the power of love, the boundless imagination of a writer – and the immortal music of Jimi Hendrix.

The gardener hired by Igor's mother is a mysterious man. He's about sixty years old, pretty sparing with his words, and won't drink a drop of alcohol. And what does the blurred, illegible tattoo on his upper arm mean? With the help of a computer-savvy friend of his, young Igor manages to decipher it: ›Ochakov 1957‹, it reads, and ›Efim Chagin's House‹. The quest to get to the bottom of it takes Igor not only to Ochakov, a seaport on the Black Sea 500 kilometres away from his home near Kyiv, but also to the year 1957... In Andrey Kurkov's fantastical and absurd storytelling, anything is possible – even time travel to a past from which the present can perhaps be seen much more clearly.

1914. A man scatters sand from the South of Italy on the streets of Berlin. At a time of war, such behaviour is not only strange, but suspicious, too. The inspector who takes on the mysterious case finds himself caught up in a story of love and taboo between two men and a woman: Jacob Tolmeyn, an art historian from Berlin, fears persecution due to his homosexuality and takes up a research post in Southern Italy, far away from the dangers of the big city. He inspects the Staufian forts together with his assistant Beat, a former Papal Swiss Guard, when they meet Letizia, an Italian women’s rights campaigner. The three of them experience the dangers and opportunities of their era until Tolmeyn returns to Berlin, where he unwillingly attracts the inspector’s attention with a trail of sand.

A Grain of Sand on the Longlist of the German Book Prize 2014.

In ›Venetian Curiosities‹ Donna Leon tells amazing tales from the Venetian past, whilst ›Il Complesso Barocco‹ offers virtuosities by Antonio Vivaldi on the CD which accompanies this book. Venice is unique. And so is its history. But what is most remarkable are the stories that the inhabitants tell each other about what happened in the past. Donna Leon has picked up the most intriguing customs and events recounting anecdotes that might or might not be true, and thus the Serenissima is seen from an astonishing side. An elephant seeks refuge in the church of S. Antonin, courtesans are supposed to convert men to proper heterosexual behaviour, gamblers bet their palazzos, people are convicted though they prove to be innocent – Venice is full of curious and odd episodes. These stories are of as rich a diversity as the music of Antonio Vivaldi: The CD presents seven solo concerts: Violin, cello, oboe and bassoon, viola, violone and harpsichord, they all play their part. ›Il Complesso Barocco‹, founded in 1979 by Alan Curtis, is an international ensemble dedicated to Baroque music on original instruments. It has played a fundamental role in the modern revival of Baroque operas, especially those of Monteverdi, Vivaldi and Handel. ›Il Complesso Barocco‹ received the ›Antonio Vivaldi International Recording Prize‹ in 1997 as best production in the vocal section. For their Handel recordings they were awarded the ›Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik‹ in 2003 as well as, on several occasions, the international ›Handel Recording Prize‹.

The Milkman in the Night is at the same time a political satire, triple love story, black comedy, murder mystery and parable about modern Ukraine – a novel with so many punch lines, twists and stories as there are stars in the Milky Way. 

Every morning at half past four, when it is still dark and icy cold, young Irina gets on the bus to Kyiv. In the city, her breast milk is pumped out for cash while her own little daughter has to content herself with baby formula. Undoubtedly, a baby born to rich parents somewhere gets her milk, Irina thinks. In fact, however, it serves an influential parliamentarian as a magic potion . . . When Irina falls in love and no longer wants to work as a ›wet-nurse‹ , the politician is not amused. 

Andrej Kurkow brilliantly intertwines the life stories of three young couples. A crazy novel from the Ukraine, a country in which reality is more absurd than any fantasy – even such wild fantasies as those of Andrej Kurkow.

›How can I burn my husband? Where does my new liver come from? How can I dispose of my Steinway grand piano?‹ Eight Ukrainian stories provide answers to these and other questions. Ivan becomes a regular customer in a small gourmet restaurant and comes to know and treasure its head chef, Dymich. One day, Dymich disappears, but he has purposely left behind a series of dishes for Ivan, which his niece Vera is to prepare for him and serve up on five consecutive evenings. All of the dishes taste exquisite, but why does Ivan later discover tiny grains of sand between his teeth? And what does the lawyer want who turns up for dinner on the fifth night?