The Snake Mouth
Published by Diogenes as Das Schlangenmaul
Original Title: Das Schlangenmaul

Grubby backyard clubs, dark gambling dens, and in their midst politicians and wheeler-dealers.
Dangerous and wanton.

»The sun played in her hair and she played with her pearls and looked like the cover of a fancy woman’s magazine – or like a million bucks, a million you would have a harder time getting to than that in the bank.«

»Search expert for unusual cases« is what Heinz Harder calls himself in his small ad. In real life an unemployed, burnt-out glossy magazine hack, his first client is rich and beautiful and looking for her disappeared daughter. For the »journalist, detective and knight in shining armour«, things get increasingly dangerous in the Berlin of fly-by-night businessmen, illegal clubs and dubious political and financial dealings where the trail leads him.

Now in a new edition, with a foreword by Friedrich Ani.

Contemporary Literature
320 pages
2019

978-3-257-07036-1
Jörg
Fauser

Jörg Fauser (1944 – 1987) was born near Frankfurt. After dropping out of university, he spent some years living in Istanbul and London, making a living in office jobs, as an airport worker and night watchman, among other things. In 1974, he switched to writing. His novels, poems, newspaper articles and short stories occupy an exceptional position in German literature. Jörg Fauser died in an accident on a motorway near Munich on the night after his birthday.

»At first, I didn’t want to become a professional writer, I just wanted to write. I imagined a normal existence while producing a few eternal things on the side.«
Jörg Fauser

Photo: Fauser Archiv

Quotes

Martin Compart
(German author)

»It’s all about the city as beast, a place where no crime goes unpunished; about burnt-out dreams of honour and justice; about scraps of a jazz track blown by the wind through night streets wet with rain . . .«

Birgit Ruf
Nürnberger Nachrichten

»The plot has got everything it takes to make it a riveting novel. And it also has the special note of being based on a true story.«

Renate Naber
WDR 5, Cologne

»Brutal criminals, corrupt and career-obsessed politicians and their wives, prostitutes in the sadomasochistic netherworld – Jörg Fauser paints a grim picture of the Federal Republic, as ugly as it is realistic.«

Frank Schäfer
Junge Welt, Berlin

»Jörg Fauser deftly captures the mood in this depleted, spent cityscape, one which also fascinated individuals like David Bowie and Iggy Pop.«

Monika von Aufschnaiter
BR2, Munich

»Seven hours just flew by – and I found myself regretting that Jörg Fauser never wrote an entire crime series based around Heinz Harder.«