The Lover

After the success of his novel Schwarze Sonne scheine, which described the birth of the artist prototypically through betrayed trust, Albert Ostermaier now turns to one of his other big literary themes: love. »Trust and deception, love and loss – those are Albert Ostermaier’s big themes.« (From the laudation at the WELT-Literaturpreis 2011)

Parisian police inspector Olivier is faced with the entire emotional breadth of love. He has to interrogate a woman who claims after sexual intercourse to transform her male partners in all possible ways, to disfigure her female rivals and kill lovers of both sexes. At first, the police inspector thinks she is insane. Then he starts to understand that this person has a vast knowledge of emotions – from love to hate, affection to destruction. He listens over and over to the tapes of her interrogation to try and grasp the mystery behind this woman. At the end of this superbly composed, exciting and far-reaching novel, the police find their colleague, the inspector: murdered.