The Sinner (55 page)

She didn't expect a reply, nor did she look to see if Brauning
nodded. "How long is this therapy likely to take?" she asked after a
brief silence. `A year? Two years?"

"I can't say, Frau Bender. It depends on a number of things.
Mainly, of course, on you."

"That's what I thought. Everything depends mainly on me, it
always does." She gave a low laugh. "In that case, I'll do my best.
I can't stay with Margret forever, and it's not worth looking for a place of my own. I must get home as soon as possible. Any news
of my father?"

He didn't know what to say. Rudolf Grovian had undertaken to
inform her that her father was dead. "Leave it to me," he'd said.
"I'm her scapegoat in any case." He had told her shortly before
their visit to Frankfurt, Brauning knew that for a fact.

She stared at the road ahead. "I guessed Gereon wouldn't
withdraw his petition. Anyway, it'll be best if I go where I'm needed.
I've decided to look after my father -wash him, comb his hair, feed
him and do whatever else one has to do for a bedridden old man.
I'll also send for my mother. They'll have to let me have her back if
I ask, won't they? She isn't dangerous - she wouldn't harm anyone.
And then I'll make sure Magdalena gets her cremation. I don't
know how I'll manage it, but I will, even if I have to dig her up in
the middle of the night. I'll manage it somehow."

She fell silent for a few moments, then started to smile. "Don't
worry," she said, glancing at him sideways, "I didn't mean that.
The chief said it would be desecration of the dead or something.
I've no wish to desecrate or disturb anyone, and I haven't forgotten
where my father is. I'll never forget anything again, I'm afraid. It's
purely theoretical. I like to imagine myself sitting beside his bed,
talking to him. I'd like to have explained everything to him."

She squared her shoulders, and her voice hardened. "Don't
forget about the fitted kitchen. I'm going to have it dismantled and
carted off to Buchholz right away. And my personal belongings.
I don't want any money, I've got enough. I've also got a house
and a car. They're old but they're still there, and someone's got
to see they don't go to rack and ruin. Can you imagine what the
front garden looks like? The front garden and the curtains were
Father's pride and joy. It didn't matter to him so much what the
house looked like inside, but the curtains had to be spotless. Herr
Grovian said everything looked clean and tidy on his last visit, but
that's a long time ago."

She sighed. "Have you heard from Herr Grovian?" Brauning
shook his head. She gave another shrug. Water under the bridge
flowed fast.

But she could never forget it all, not now. Only the ultimate sin of
suicide could bring oblivion. She would have to see. If she couldn't
bear it any longer ... A day clinic. And the nights in Margret's
apartment. Margret was often on night duty, and she always kept
plenty of pills in the little cupboard beside her bed.

D.B.

Elwood Reid

"Raunchy, seamy, cocksure, perversely juicy, so surprising in
its vivid convolutions of plot and character that you keep
turning back a few pages to see how the author is getting
away with it."Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall

In 1971 a man calling himself D.B. Cooper hijacked a flight,
claimed his ransom without harming a soul and vanished. He
parachuted out of the plane over the dense woods of the
Pacific Northwest with $200,000 strapped to his body.
Elwood Reid uses this true story as a starting point, imagining Cooper as Phil Fitch, a Vietnam vet with a failed marriage
who decides the time has come to do something that will save
him from a life of punching time cards and wondering what
could have been. Fitch ends up in Mexico, where he drifts
until a turn of bad luck forces him to return home.

Meanwhile, retired FBI agent Frank Marshall, struggling
with his new life of leisure - fishing, drinking too much,
tempted to embark on an affair with a female witness -
decides to help a young agent determined to solve the case
of D.B. Cooper. An odyssey, a manhunt, a gripping and frequently hilarious tale.

PRAISE FOR D.B.

"Wild and alive, an epic manhunt and brutal social portrait,
D.B. is the road trip of your dreams - Hunter Thompson
does the driving, but John Steinbeck holds the map."
Mark Costello, author of Big If

"Masterfully told, D.B. ranks among the best and most
entertaining books of the year." Pittsburgh "Tribune

"Elwood Reid ascends to the top of his generation with this
novel." Mark Richard, author of Fishboy

"Smart and direct prose ... By shifting the reader's attention
from the overtly dramatic to the psychological, Reid has
written something much more engaging than the mere
suspense novel D.B. might have been."
The New York Times Book Review

FEVER

Friedrich Glauser

"With good reason, the German language prize for detective
fiction is named after Glauser... He has Simenon's ability to
turn a stereotype into a person, and the moral complexity to
appeal to justice over the head of police procedure."
Times Literary Supplement

When two women are "accidentally" killed by gas leaks, Sergeant Studer investigates the thinly disguised double murder
in Bern and Basel. The trail leads to a geologist dead from a
tropical fever in a Moroccan Foreign Legion post and a
murky oil deal involving rapacious politicians and their
henchmen. With the help of a hashish-induced dream and
the common sense of his stay-at-home wife, Studer solves the
multiple riddles on offer. But assigning guilt remains an
elusive affair.

Fever, a European crime classic, was first published in 1936
and is the third in the Sergeant Studer series published by
Bitter Lemon Press.

Praise for Glauser's other Sergeant Studer novels

"Thumbprint is a fine example of the craft of detective
writing in a period which fans will regard as the golden age of
crime fiction." Sunday "Telegraph

"Thumbprint is a genuine curiosity that compares to the dank
poetry of Simenon and reveals the enormous debt owed by
Durenmatt, Switzerland's most famous crime writer, for
whom this should be seen as a template." Guardian

"A despairing plot about the reality of madness and life,
leavened at regular intervals with strong doses of bittersweet
irony. The idiosyncratic investigation of In Matto's Realm and
its laconic detective have not aged one iota." Guardian

"Glauser was among the best European crime writers of the
inter-war years. The detail, place and sinister characters are
so intelligently sculpted that the sense of foreboding is
palpable." Glasgow Herald

FRAMED

Tonino Benacquista

"One of France's leading crime and mystery authors."
Guardian

Antoine's life is good. During the day he hangs pictures for
the most fashionable art galleries in Paris. Evenings he dedicates to the silky moves and subtle tactics of billiards, his true
passion. But when Antoine is attacked by an art thief in a
gallery his world begins to fall apart. His maverick investigation triggers two murders - he finds himself the prime
suspect for one of them - as he uncovers a cesspool of art
fraud. A game of billiards decides the outcome of this violently funny tale, laced with brilliant riffs about the world of
modern art and the parasites that infest it.

In 2004 Bitter Lemon Press introduced Tonino Benacquista
to English-speaking readers with the critically acclaimed
novel Holy Smoke.

PRAISE FOR FRAMED

"Screenwriter for the award-winning French crime movie
The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Tonino Benacquista is also
a wonderful observer of everyday life, petty evil and the
ordinariness of crime. The pace never falters as personal
grief collides with outrageous humour and a biting running
commentary on the crooked world of modern art."
Guardian

"Edgy, offbeat black comedy." The Times

"Flip and frantic foray into art galleries and billiards halls of
modern Paris." Evening Standard

"A black comedy that is set in Paris but reflects its author's
boisterous Italian sensibility. The manic tale is told by an
apprentice picture-hanger who encounters a thief in a
fashionable art gallery and becomes so caught up in a case of
art fraud that he himself `touches up' a Kandinsky."
New York Times

HAVANA BLACK

Leonardo Padura

A MARIO CONDE MYSTERY

"The mission of that enterprising Bitter Lemon Press is to
publish English translations of the best foreign crime fiction.
The newest addition to its list is the prize-winning Cuban
novelist Leonardo Padura" The "Telegraph

The brutally mutilated body of Miguel Forcade is discovered
washed up on a Havana beach. Head smashed in by a baseball bat, genitals cut off with a blunt knife. Forcade was once
responsible for confiscating art works from the bourgeoisie
fleeing the revolution. Had he really returned from exile just
to visit his ailing father?

Lieutenant Mario Conde immerses himself in Cuba's dark
history, expropriations of priceless paintings now vanished
without trace, corruption and old families who appear to
have lost much, but not everything.

Padura evokes the disillusionment of a generation, yet this
novel is a eulogy to Cuba, and to the great friendships of
those who chose to stay and fight for survival.

PRAISE FOR HAVANA BLACK

"A great plot, perfectly executed with huge atmosphere. You
can almost smell the cigar smoke, rum and cheap women."
Daily Mirror

"This is a strong tasting book. A rich feast of wit and
feeling." The Independent

"Well-plotted second volume of Padura's seething, steamy
Havana Quartet. This densely packed mystery should attract
readers outside the genre." Publishers Weekly

"Lt. Mario Conde, known on the street as `the Count,' is
prone to metaphysical reflection on the history of his
melancholy land but the city of Havana keeps bursting
through his meditations, looking very much alive."
New York Times