David's Revenge
Published by Diogenes as Davids Rache
Original Title: Davids Rache
He had ticked his educational trip through beautiful Georgia off his list a long time ago. And also the hospitality offered by David Ninoschwili and his attractive partner, Matassi, who, however, had proved herself to be exceptionally obliging. He seems to remember that he had only just avoided great danger at that time. He, i.e. the committed senior teacher, Christian Kestner, happily married to a successful lawyer, the not so happy father of a son who recently has been fraternising with extreme right wing circles. The past catches up with Kestner seven years later: In the meantime there is civil war in Georgia and Ninoschwili announces his arrival in the West. Where will he live? According to the rules of Georgian hospitality with the person that he had put up in his home at an earlier date: Kestner. The family's reaction is one of open rejection. Kestner assures them it will only be for two, three weeks - and is completely mistaken. Their Georgian guest takes up mysterious activities and develops a great liking for Kestner's wife. The senior teacher's vivid imagination is triggered off, he begins to shadow the foreigner and to plot and scheme against him …
Contemporary Literature, Crime Fiction
304 pages
1994

978-3-257-06016-4
Hans Werner
Kettenbach

Hans Werner Kettenbach (1928 - 2018) studied many things over the years in four universities; he has worked as an advertising salesman, a shorthand secretary for the football magazine ›Kicker‹, a radio editor and finally as the editor of a newspaper. He wrote his first novel at the age of fifty. He has written a total of fourteen, five of which have been filmed. Critics have compared them to the works of Sjöwall/Wahlöö (›Plärrer‹), Simenon and Patricia Highsmith (›FAZ‹). In 2009 Kettenbach was awarded the ›Ehrenglauser‹ prize for crime writing for his life's work.

Photo: © Regine Mosimann / Diogenes Verlag

Quotes

Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»Kettenbach's narrative is a distinctive mixture of aloofness and tenderness, of humour and melancholy, but it is always exciting without losing its credibility.«
Le Monde, Paris
»Wonderfully terrifying novel from one of Europe's leading noir writers.«

Movie adaptations

1995
Davids Rache, Hartmut Griesmayr