Davenport 160 x 90

Sonja Slanski runs the debt collection company »Claim Management«, which is also involved in some other kinds of shady business.

An obscure member of Frankfurt’s high society commissions Slanski to ruin a highly criminal law firm, by whatever means necessary, because she feels betrayed over a patent. Slanski does quite a thorough job of it, unaware of the fact that this client is the wife of her lover.

Then, her half-sister Luna turns up out of the blue – a young artist who is making quite a splash with her extreme art, somewhere at the intersection of porn, art escort, avantgarde, jet set and drug business. When Slanski finds Luna dead in her flat shortly after her arrival, she questions whether it should have been her lying on the floor instead of Luna. And to make matters worse, the police want her to go undercover to investigate a nasty network of lawyers and industrialists. A job she doesn’t want at all...

»Davenport 160 x 90 is an outstanding masterpiece that sets new standards. ... [It is] both the most poignant and the saddest crime novel I have read so far this year.« Tobias Gohlis, Best of Crime List

»Ruge juggles all the different aspects of the genre, catches them all, her writing is addictive.« Elmar Krekeler, DIE WELT

»She places her words adamantly and precisely, without any embellishments to slow us down, but above all with a laconic quality that bites and burns. [...] We want to read more from Sybille Ruge after her debut, and we will.« Claus-Jürgen Göpfert, Frankfurter Rundschau

»One of the most surprising debuts in recent years in German crime fiction writing … This novel makes a statement.« Hannes Hintermeier, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung

»A great crime novel, but above all great literature.« FOCUS

»Breathtaking … exceptional … as witty as it is cunning.« Hanspeter Eggenberger, Tages-Anzeiger

»If you like it conventional, you might be overwhelmed by this wild mixture of original characters, evil life lessons and a sharp yet humorous look at reality. But if you submit to it, you will be rewarded – crime novel or not!« Die Presse, Wien

»A surprising debut with knock-out qualities.« Kolja Mensing, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

»Dark, dirty, punchy.« 3sat Kulturzeit

»In her spectacular debut novel, Sybille Ruge takes down the age of neoliberalism – with the sharpest means of language and with maximum fluidity. Great entertainment.« WDR1

»Sibylle Ruge uses and modfies the patterns of detective stories […] excellent entertainment value.« Ulrich Noller, WDR5

»This book is a sensation! Tough, stylistically confident, gripping.« Andreas Ammer, BR