9mm Cut

When a head turns up in a plastic bag on the front doorstep of the offices of the NGO Interni and the director is murdered, it’s clear that something is amiss with the organisation. And there is nothing worse for a charitable foundation than bad press. A worrying situation for the food and meat tycoon Wellinghofen, the main donor behind Interni, who sends his right-hand woman, under the name Eve Klein, to the foundation headquarters in Zurich. While she’s there, she’s also supposed to launder some of his money on the art market, with the help of the shadowy art guru Masha Harvensteen. In addition to the visibly overwhelmed supervisor of the foundation, Max Karnofsky, Eve has to contend with Karnofsky’s icy wife Helena, with their daughters – twins who wouldn’t look out of place in The Shining – and a gruff banker from New York with dubious connections.

A world of the rich and the super-rich, in which everything is functional. Even children. But the only thing that really seems to function is the robotic lawn mower. In this world, big business, greed, and organised crime tied up in one big, tangled web. Though the connections may be quite different to what Eve first thinks.

»The Glauser Prize–winner … is back with a sharp-witted and high-paced thriller.« Sven Trautwein, Frankfurter Rundschau

»A powerfully eloquent and linguistically brilliant critique of capitalism disguised as a thriller.« Peter Huber, Die Presse

»Sybille Ruge can really write, and her writing can be so tough, so nasty and brash that it can sometimes seem as if she is drunk on her own punchlines. But that’s not an issue, because the lines are just so good. … With her unmistakable tone, after two books, she has already become one of the most vital voices in German crime writing.« Peter Körte, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung