The Snowman

'Prose that penetrates the reader's mind like speed, fast paced, without an ounce of fat.'-Weltwoche He's found five pounds of top quality Peruvian cocaine in a suit-case. Pursued by the police and drug traffickers the luckless Blum falls prey to the frenzied paranoia of the cocaine addict and dealer. This is a fast-paced thriller written with acerbic humour, a hardboiled evocation of drug-fuelled existence and a penetrating observation of those at the edge of German society. Having broken his addiction to on heroin at the age of thirty, Jörg Fauser spent much of the rest of his life dependent on alcohol. He died aged forty-three in 1987, run over by a truck at four am on a German highway.

Jörg Fauser, born in 1944 in Germany, was a novelist, essayist and journalist. Having broken his dependency on heroin at the age of thirty he spent much of the rest of his working life dependent on alcohol. He nevertheless produced three highly successful novels including The Snowman and much praised essays of literary criticism. On July 16th 1987 he had been celebrating his forty third birthday. At dawn, instead of going back to his home in Munich, he wandered on to a stretch of motorway, by chance or by choice, and was struck down by a truck. He died instantly. Translator of The Snowman.