Young lawyer Alex Zabel defends industrialist Herbert Klofft in a case for wrongful dismissal being brought against him by his former employee and mistress. She is thirty-four, he seventy-eight, a despot, now wheelchair bound and dying of cancer. Alex must deal with a hopeless case, his growing empathy with a repulsive client and his sexual attraction to Klofft's elderly wife.

Hans Werner Kettenbach: Hans Werner Kettenbach was born near Cologne. He is the author of several highly acclaimed novels. He came to writing late in life, publishing his first book at the age of fifty. Previous jobs he has held include construction worker, court stenographer, football journalist, foreign correspondent in New York and, most recently, newspaper editor. His crime novels have won the Jerry-Cotton Prize and the Deutscher-Krimi Prize, and five of them have been made into successful films, including Black Ice, previously published by Bitter Lemon Press.Anthea Bell: Anthea Bell is a literary and prize-winning translator, most recently of Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald, and multiple works by E.T.A. Hoffmann. She won the 2010 Schlegel-Tieck prize for her work on Stefan Zweig's compelling novella Burning Secret. She also translated Black Ice and David's Revenge by Hans Werner Kettenbach.