THE YOUNG MARKUS HAUSER takes a job with Selma Bruhns, a strange elderly lady who pays him to arrange hundreds of letters in chronological order. For six days Markus works consciously, all the while penetrating little by little into the past of this woman who surrounds herself with cats and memories. On the last day Selma proposes a bargain, a game of cards that will change his life forever.
Written in the style of a crime investigation, this novel pieces together the puzzle of life fractured by war and plunges the reader, along with the characters, into a strange and troubling world.

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ADOLF SCHRÖDER was born in 1938 in Bremen. He is a playwright, a scriptwriter and has written one other novel, The Boy. He lives in Hamburg where he continues to work as a taxi driver.

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TRANSLATED from the German by Andrew Brown
Cover Illustration Claude Cahun
ISBN (10) 1 901285 71 5
ISBN (13) 978 1 901285 710

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"As exciting as a thriller."
Le Nouvel Observateur

"Read Adolf Schröder: you will not forget him."
Magazine Littéraire

"A gripping and up-stirring novel. Adolf Schröder: A name one should remember."
Le Figaro

"It is admirable how Schröder knows how to intelligently create suspense."
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

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