German author Friedrich Ani combines deep sorrow, human darkness, and breath-taking tension in his latest crime novel. Happiness is extinguished completely one cold November night when eleven-year-old Lennard Grabbe fails to return home. Thirty-four days later, he is found to have been murdered, and former inspector Jakob Franck, the protagonist of Friedrich Ani's previous novel The Nameless Day, is entrusted with delivering the most horrible news any parent could ever dream of, setting off a chain reaction of grief among family and friends. As the special task force is unable to make any progress in the case and the family is unable to deal with the loss, Franck-driven by the need to bring them clarity but also by the painful memories of all the unsolved murder cases from when he was still on active duty-buries himself in witness statements and reports up to the point of exhaustion. He spends hours at the crime scene and employs his special technique of "thought sensitivity," an abstract, intuitive process that may very well lead him to the "fossil"-that crucial piece of information he needs to solve the case. Once again, Ani combines deep sorrow, human darkness, and breath-taking tension in a novel whose melancholy can hardly be surpassed.

Now in paperback, the thrilling, psychological tale of a twenty-year-old cold case and the detective committed to solving it. After years on the job, police detective Jakob Franck has retired. Finally, the dead-with all their mysteries-will no longer have any claim on him. Or so he thinks. On a cold autumn afternoon, a case he thought he'd long put behind him returns to his life-and turns it upside down. The Nameless Day tells the story of that twenty-year-old case, which began with Franck carrying the news of the suicide of a seventeen-year-old girl to her mother, and holding her for seven hours as, in her grief, she said not a single word. Now her father has appeared, swearing to Franck that his daughter was murdered. Can Franck follow the cold trail of evidence two decades later to see whether he's telling the truth? Could he live with himself if he didn't? A psychological crime novel certain to thrill fans of Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo, The Nameless Day is a masterpiece, a tightly plotted story of contemporary alienation, loss, and violence.

After years on the job, police detective Jakob Franck has retired. Finally, the dead with all their mysteries will no longer have any claim on him. Or so he thinks. On a cold autumn afternoon, a case he thought he'd long put behind him returns to his life and turns it upside down. The Nameless Day tells the story of that twenty-year-old case, which began with Franck carrying the news of the suicide of a seventeen-year-old girl to her mother, and holding her for seven hours as, in her grief, she said not a single word. Now her father has appeared, swearing to Franck that his daughter was murdered. Can Franck follow the cold trail of evidence two decades later to see whether he's telling the truth? Could he live with himself if he didn't? A psychological crime novel certain to thrill fans of Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo, The Nameless Day is a masterpiece, a tightly plotted story of contemporary alienation, loss, and violence.