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Jakob Arjouni

Chez Max

Published by Diogenes as Chez Max

Original Title: Chez Max

The world in the year 2064. Overpopulation? Famine? Religious wars? Dictatorships? On the contrary. At least, not in the Eurasian and North American regions. Securely fenced off from the rest of the world, life in these areas, with the exception of a handful of suicide bombings and regular border disputes, is constantly improving. Nowhere more so than at »Chez Max – German Cuisine«, a small, top-quality restaurant located in Paris' eleventh arrondissement. Its customers are, however, not only served fine food, but carefully monitored, their conversations overheard – because Max is not only the restaurant manager, but also an Ashcroft agent, a member of a secret government organisation whose mission is to promptly identify and weed out anything that may threaten the political status quo. Max leads a full and orderly life, oscillating between professional success and social commitment. The only spanner in the works is his Ashcroft partner, Chen Wu, a self-righteous loudmouth, who leaves no taboo unbroken, attacks every human weakness and takes liberties at will - all because of the spectacular successes he has achieved within the organisation. Until the day that Wu's own weakness is revealed and Max sees an opportunity to get rid off his partner once and for all.

Contemporary Literature
224 pages
2006

978-3-257-06536-7

Jakob

Arjouni

Jakob Arjouni, born 1964 in Frankfurt on the Main, has published novels, short stories, theatre and radio plays. Arjouni was only twenty-one years old when his acclaimed debut, ›Happy birthday, Turk!‹ was published and its main character, the Frankfurt-based private detective Kemal Kayankaya, took on his very first investigation. In 1991, the book was made into a film, directed by Doris Dörrie. Three further cases followed; for the third, ›One Man, One Murder‹, Jakob Arjouni was awarded the 1992 ›German Crime Fiction Prize‹. In autumn 2012, ›Brother Kemal‹, the fifth volume starring the German-Turkish investigator was published. The series is now firmly established as a classic amongst crime literature. Apart from his stage plays, his work also includes the Berlin novels ›Magic Hoffmann‹ (1996) and ›Holy Eddy‹ (2009) as well as ›Idiots. Five Fairy Tales‹ (2003). His novels ›Homework‹, ›Chez Max‹, and particularly his novel about an East-German Nazi follower, ›Cherryman Hunts Mister White‹, are now on school reading lists. The theme of addressing violence in all its forms runs through Arjouni's work like a red thread. His readers loved him for his thrilling, sharp-tongued, linguistically unpretentious, witty and clever books. He died on the 17th of January 2013 in Berlin.

Jakob Arjouni's works have been published in 24 languages.

Photo: © Regine Mosimann / Diogenes Verlag

More about the author

Photo of Jakob Arjouni, © Regine Mosimann / Diogenes Verlag

Quotes

Sven Boedecker
SonntagsZeitung, Zürich

»With ›Chez Max‹, Jakob Arjouni has written the most original novel yet about the events of 9/11.«

Marcel Elsner
St. Galler Tagblatt

»As gripping as Arjouni's early Kayankaya-Cases. (...) In the end you have been entertained frantically well.«