Adler und Engel

Unique special edition: Jessie is dead. She shot herself while talking to Max. In school, Max was the born loser, awkward and overweight. Then he made himself the project of his life: a career lawyer. Within ten years, he worked his way up, he believed, through his own efforts. To Vienna, to the pinnacle of international law, from where the community of nations looks like a few children throwing sand in each other's eyes. But then Jessie reappeared, bringing with her the only real feeling in Max's life: the boundless love for the childishly crazy daughter of a drug dealer. When Jessie dies, Max quits his job. He sits in Leipzig and decides to measure the rest of his life by the amount of cocaine he can still buy. Max is at the end of his rope. When he calls Clara, a young and tough radio host, she forces him to take a trip back to Vienna, back to his past. Gradually, it becomes clear: His and Jessie's story was part of the drama in the Balkans. Their strange love is a product of that cynical coexistence of civil war heroes, genocidal murderers, drug dealers, and UN politicians who allow terrible things to prevent even worse ones. Juli Zeh's novel "Adler und Engel" is furious; it crawls into every corner of your mind. It is a love story, a drug crime thriller, and a political thriller all at once. The author creates an impressive panorama of the world after the collapse of ideologies. In a fast-paced yet poetic language, she weaves the amour fou of Max and Jessie with the political turmoil at the farthest edges of Europe.