Black Ice

November 28, 2005
Was 46-year-old Erika Wallmann's death an accident or suicide? Neither, according to Jupp Scholten, a low-level employee in the civil engineering firm run by Wallmann's richer, older husband, in Kettenbach's slow-paced and dated 1982 novel, his first to be published in English. Despite the husband's obvious motive—the firm was owned by his wife—the police conclude the death was accidental, but Scholten can't let the matter go, for two reasons. Erika once confided in Scholten, hinting that her marriage to the boss was on the ropes, but the biggest motivation for the clerk is that his life is so unrelentingly depressing. His ailing shrew of a wife makes his home life miserable; his job is deadly dull; he's filled with bitterness and anger; and he wants to take down his hated boss. The mystery of Erika's death is compelling enough, but there's barely anything else for a reader to relish, from the unlikable characters to the turgid prose (possibly a translation issue).

December 1, 2005
Enjoying its first English translation, this 1982 novel delves into the unpleasant psyche of one Jupp Scholten. A longtime employee of a German engineering firm, Jupp swipes company cigars, harasses the secretary, berates the laborers, and passes the buck whenever possible. His personal life is a mess, too. Jupp visits hookers on the way home, drinks to excess, and shuts out his emotionally needy wife in favor of a beloved cat. But when firm heiress Erika Wallmann dies after taking an improbable tumble at her lake house, Jupp takes a step on the unfamiliar path to redemption by setting out to finger her husband for murder. Sure, his investigation is driven by bitterness and self-interest, but Jupp soon develops a plausible theory of the crime, which he methodically tests out between schnapps binges. The question is, Will he become an unlikely hero or find himself drawn too far into the mind of a killer? In what amounts to a virtuoso shaggy-dog story, Kettenbach provides an answer that's either darkly humorous or melancholically tragic, depending on how black the reader's heart proves to be.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)