„Female on Fire“ tackles the Norwegian cold case of the so-called Ice Valley Woman, whose true identity still awaits disclosure half a century after the woman´s violent death by burning. Working his way through the body of evidence and testimonials in the manner of a „literary profiler“, Mr. Werner, author of, among others, the Laura-Forster novel tetralogy of crime and adventure, analyses the details of the case the backdrop of the turbulent nineteen-sixties. By revisiting ostensibly ascertained facts and unveiling new pieces of evidence so far neglected or misinterpreted, the author manages to strip the mysterious woman of one secret after another and for the first time presents a coherent and convincing solution.
The book explores the intricate relationship between corporate business and the art world, questioning whether art has been overshadowed by commercial interests. Through the author's insider perspective from his time at the Guggenheim Museum, it reveals that contemporary art museums are not a departure from historical practices but rather a continuation of cultural institutions shaped by Enlightenment ideals, colonialism, and democratic rhetoric. This examination provides a critical look at how these factors influence the current art landscape.
Laura Forster decides to shirk the responsibility of following in her late father's footsteps as the managing director of a successful Hamburg-based logistics company. In order to come up for air, she rushes aboard the next best plane to the Caribbean, where her father's yacht, the Yellow Dancer, is berthed. What she doesn't know yet: she is unwittingly letting herself into a nightmarish journey to the other side of the Carrollian mirror, where life runs upside down and comforting certainties are as rare as a needle in a haystack. Will Laura succumb to the harrowing spectres of evil or will she prevail and return a duplicate of the tough, unforgiving amazon that is her newly-found sister Solitaire? One way or another, the hurricane-harried West Indies have never been a place for the meek and faint-hearted...
Laura and Solitaire come face to face with a true Mission Impossible, here. On the historical backdrop of the Armada´s failed campaign of 1588, the sisters follow on the long-lost trail of a Spanish traitor who, having left his compañeros in the lurch during the foundering of their ship, the Gran Grifón, near Fair Isle, vanished with both several pocketfuls of ducats and invaluable gold crucifixes, only to re-emerge in the folds of the German Hanse as Englishman Yorrick.Being of the stuff myths are made of, Yorrick later became the founding father of a well-reputed Brotherhood, which, after his death, gradually degenerated into a criminal gang, soon seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth, only to rear its head again more recently as the politically refurbished Thule Tingvall, whose home turf are the far-off archipelagos at the Old World´s Nort-western rim: Hebrides, Orkneys, Shetlands. Consequently, it´s those island territories which become the stepping-stones of the Forster sisters´ bloody route toward that magic place going by the name of Bluebell.
Laura Forster´s doing it again. The third volume follows her, with some anticipation, to the Channel Islands, in the Bay of St. Malo. Here, she is busy unveiling a dark secret ultimately harking back to the German occupation during WW II. The focus of her investigations lies on the history of the legendary Yarmouth Six: a jolly band of six young expendables recruited from a notorious „juvie“. Under the leadership of an inexperienced lieutenant straight from Sandhurst, they are to mount a „pinprick“ commando raid on the heavily mined little island of Sark. A suicide mission, obviously, that soon runs into heavy waters and comes very close to a fubar end. One of the recruits drowns; others sustain gunshot wounds. When, finally, it´s each man for himself, the generalized confusion gives rise to a fair number of dreadful, shocking, but also rather hilarious episodes, laughter being deadlier than bullets. Once the war is over, the six survivors, who had narrowly failed to become the terror of the Nazis, decide henceforth to take better care of Number One by founding a brotherhood of crime, which, in turn, is to become the terror of the British Isles. All of that is a lot of water under the bridge. Or is it? A long and bloody trail appears to be leading from the six graves to a mysterious present-day murder spree. When, in the course of his vendetta, the killer shoots a certain Solveig by way of collateral, he´s made a bad mistake. Young Solveig happened to be the first great love-affair of Laura Forster´s adoptive son, Ignace. And God knows, the Forster family is not in the habit of taking such things lying down...
Whereas Yellow Dancer took Laura West to the Caribbean, Yilan makes her go East, to the Greek Aegean, where both she and her indomitable sister Solitaire follow the tracks of Süleyman the Silent who kidnaped Laura´s adopted son Ignace. It´s a desperate race against time and a hallucinating dance around a much-coveted legendary icon of the Virgin Mary that proudly carries the scars of revolutionary turmoil both in fledgeling modern Greece and a chaotic Soviet Union in the making. As always, Laura, a staunch agnostic herself, is firmly wedged between all fronts, Orthodox and otherwise. Undaunted, the unlikely twin sisters accept the challenge of a showdown in a giant long-abandoned and half decrepit wooden orphanage. Situated on the largest of the Princes´ Islands in the Marmara Sea just beyond the pale of Istanbul, the solitary orphanage is said to be resounding with the laughter and cries of kids occasionally, on calm and quiet nights...
Obsáhlá publikace popisuje více než 700 zajištěných horských cest v Alpách, od Azurového pobřeží na západě až po Vídeňský les na východě. Kniha je rozdělena do sedmi základních kapitol podle jednotlivých horských oblastí, úvod obsahuje historii zajištěných cest, techniku lezení a návod jak předcházet nebezpečí na horách. Nechybí přehledné mapy a místopisný rejstřík.
Immer mehr Bergsteiger entdecken alpine Klettersteige, die es ermöglichen, gesicherte Steiganlagen zu nutzen und in schwindelerregende Höhen zu klettern. Dabei stehen vertretbare Risiken, hoher Erlebniswert und Genuss im Vordergrund. Der »Klettersteigatlas Alpen« bietet einen umfassenden Überblick über mehr als 900 Klettersteige in den Alpen, gegliedert nach Gebirgsgruppen. Zu jedem Eisenweg gibt es eine detaillierte Charakteristik, die eine schnelle Orientierung und einfache Vergleichsmöglichkeiten ermöglicht. Wichtige Informationen wie Talorte, Parkmöglichkeiten, Anstiegszeiten, Schwierigkeitsbewertungen sowie Einkehr- und Unterkunftsmöglichkeiten werden übersichtlich präsentiert. Der Einleitungsteil enthält essentielle Ausrüstungs- und Sicherheitstipps und erklärt die Schwierigkeitsbewertung von Klettersteigen. Zudem wird relevante Klettersteigliteratur für verschiedene Regionen vorgestellt. Die Geschichte des Klettersteiggehens, von den Anfängen bis zur modernen Freizeitgestaltung, wird ebenfalls behandelt. Die Autoren, Paul Werner, Iris Kürschner, Thomas Huttenlocher und Jürgen Hemmleb, zählen zu den besten Kennern der Klettersteige in den Alpen und präsentieren in der achten, komplett überarbeiteten Auflage rund 50 neuangelegte Klettersteige.
