Andrea Maria Schenkel – författare

Bavaria, Germany, 1947. At the end of the war, Afra Zauner returns to her parents'' cottage on the edge of Mauther Forest. Unmarried, and pregnant. As she struggles to raise her child, her father''s shame, her mother''s fury and the loud whispers of the neighbours begin to weigh upon her. She doesn''t believe in her sin. But everyone else does. And someone brings judgement down upon her. Many years later, Hermann Müller is throwing a drunk out of his tavern. A traveller, who won''t stop ranting about a murder left unsolved, about police who never investigated. Out of curiousity, the file is reopened. And in the cold light of hindsight, a chilling realisation creeps upon the community. No-one ever atoned for Afra''s death. But her story is waiting to be told. Andrea Maria Schenkel returns to the form of her groundbreaking The Murder Farm, narrating through suspects, victims and investigators to lead the reader to their own awful understanding.

It had been a normal day at work. Monika was locking up, ready to head home, when the man arrived. She didn''t see his fist until it was far too late.Bundled into a car, tied up and taken in darkness to an old mill in the thick of a forest, she has been flung into a bunker. It is only now, as time passes and she sees her attacker in the light, that she notices the startling resemblance to someone from her very dark and buried past.Someone she never wanted to see again.

Munich, in the late thirties, the first years of fascism - the last before the war: Kathie is desperate to leave her sheltered village life and sets out for the city, determined that she''ll get by, one way or another. She is dark-haired, buxom and pretty, like the women who recently disappeared without a trace. Young women are being found around Munich, abused and murdered. Josef Kalteis has been arrested, but is he really responsible for all those misdeeds? Did they execute the wrong one while the murderer is still on the loose? Spellbound by the magnetizing story of the dead women, the reader follows young Kathie. Somewhere in between her naive search for luck and existential concerns, occasional prostitution and the desire for true love, she is in grave danger. Andrea Maria Schenkel has again created a novel based on real events, in which the story is told through several voices and documentation, including interrogation logs, witness statements and the dark thoughts within the murderer''s mind.

Av författaren till 2008 års bästa utländska kriminalroman, Mordbyn. 

»Andrea Maria Schenkel har en osviklig känsla för stämningar och ger på ett intuitivt sätt de olika gestalterna en egen röst. [] Efter Fallet Kalteis kan man bara konstatera vad man redan anade efter Mordbyn: Andrea Maria Schenkel har funnit sin stil.«Katja Weise, NDR Kultur En man överfaller en biluthyrning på kvällen, men när den enda anställda på plats inte har nyckeln till kassaskåpet för han bort henne till ett gammalt, förfallet kvarnhus i skogen, i vilket det även finns en hemlig luftskyddsbunker. Vill han ta henne som gisslan? Vad driver honom? Är han någon ur hennes förflutna? Är hon så oskyldig som hon först verkar? Genom bytet av berättarperspektiv mellan kidnappare och gisslan utvecklas ett mardrömslikt kammarspel i skogens avskildhet. Rollen som offer och gärningsman växlar på ett gåtfullt sätt fram och tillbaka.

I sin tredje roman visar sig Andrea Maria Schenkel ännu en gång som en mästerlig utforskare av det undermedvetna och de mänskliga avgrunderna.