Cora Bender killed a man on a sunny summer afternoon by the lake and in full view of her family and friends. Why? What could have caused this quiet, lovable young mother to stab a stranger in the throat, again and again, until she was pulled off his body? For the local police it was an open-and-shut case. Cora confessed; there was no shortage of witnesses. But Police Commissioner Rudolf Grovian refused to close the file and started his own maverick investigation. So begins the slow unravelling of Cora's past, a harrowing descent into a woman's private hell. Hailed as Germany's Patricia Highsmith for her bittersweet thrillers where the innocence of childhood collides with horrors enacted by adults, Petra Hammesfahr has written a dark, spellbinding novel which stayed at the top of the nation's bestseller list for fifteen months.

About the Author
Petra Hammesfahr, born in 1951, has not had an easy life: she left school at thirteen and became pregnant by an alcoholic husband at seventeen. It is a life that has provided inspiration for her bittersweet family crime novels where the sweetness of childhood and the horror of adults meet. Hammesfahr has written over twenty crime and suspense novels and writes scripts for television and film. She has won numerous literary prizes, including the Crime Prize of Wiesbaden and the Rhineland Literary Prize. John Brownjohn is one of Britain's foremost translators from German and French. His work has won numerous awards on both sides of the Atlantic, including the US Pen Prize. He is also a screenwriter whose credits include 'Tess' and 'Bitter Moon'.

Reviews
"In this intelligent novel Hammesfahr has etched with precision the thoughts of a woman on the edge of madness." Der Spiegel "Unrelenting suspense until the bitter end." Stern"



Book Information
ISBN 9781904738251
Author Ms Petra Hammesfahr
Format Paperback
Page Count 344
Imprint Bitter Lemon Press
Publisher Bitter Lemon Press