The Stronger Sex

"Kettenbach provides answers that are either darkly humorous or melancholically tragic, depending on how black the reader's heart proves to be."—Booklist

"Black Ice is a devilish dive into an obsessed mind by a prolific German writer."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

The cover cites Simenon and Highsmith in comparison. I'll not quibble with that."—Tangled Web

"A look into the individual's soul laid bare, into its abyss and its hopeless entanglements. Stories told along the razor-sharp edge of reality."—Die Zeit

Young lawyer Alexander Zabel has been pressured by the head of his law practice into defending the indefensible: a lying, power obsessed adulterer and ruthless industrialist accused of wrongfully dismissing his assistant and mistress. She is thirty-four; he, seventy-eight: a despot who has always had his way, now wheelchair-bound and dying of cancer. Alex must deal with a hopeless case, his growing sympathy for a repulsive client, and his sexual attraction to Klofft's elderly wife.

Less a thriller than an investigative and psychological cliffhanger, this novel examines how eroticism is somehow amplified by a sense of approaching death and presents insights into the corrosive desire for revenge, and the narrowing horizons of old age.

Hans Werner Kettenbach was born near Cologne. He published his first novel at the age of fifty. Previous jobs he has held include construction worker, court stenographer, football journalist, and foreign correspondent in New York. This is his third novel published by Bitter Lemon Press.