Head Count

A brilliant, darkly comic mystery from Germany’s answer to Patricia Highsmith.

From her earliest childhood, Maya can remember being at odds with her mother and much-hated brother. Only her father seemed to love her but he mysteriously disappeared. Nicknamed ‘Elephant’ by schoolmates and family, life for Maya is embattled until she meets the sophisticated, beautiful Cora.

These two form an intense friendship, founded on a conviction that they are somehow separate from the rest of society and do not have to abide by its rules. They dabble in crime in a minor sort of way and live fantasy lives – but rude reality intervenes in the form of manslaughter and the shattering of a precious illusion.

They grow up and seemingly apart. Maya is trapped in a conventional marriage, made worse by the visitations from her mad family, while Cora, now in Italy, is enjoying the life of luxury with a sugar daddy. But they are to join forces again, driven by their unwillingness to conform to anything but their own desires. Inevitably and, as it turns out, most inconviently, other people get in their way and steps have to be taken…steps that will lead to murder.

Beautifully written, witty and original, Head Count is the new bestselling novel from one of Europe’s hottest crime writers.