{"title":"Paulus Hochgatterer","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"mattress-house-book-paulus-hochgatterer-9780857050281","title":"The Mattress House","description":"Springtime in Furth am See: psychiatrist Raffael Horn worries about his marriage, Criminal Commissioner Kovacs is dreading a visit from his daughter; life goes on for the cast of unhinged townsfolk who peopled The Sweetness of Life. But when a man falls to his death from scaffolding, murder is suspected. Then a beaten child is brought in to the police, soon followed by others showing similar signs of abuse. This leads to an outbreak of hysteria in Furth, and Horn and Kovacs are put under serious pressure to find the perpetrator. But more horrifying crimes lie behind these beatings. A local businessman heading a paedophile ring has been filming the abuse of young girls from India, and one of them has been showing the films to the town's schoolchildren, beating them and threatening the same abuse if they speak about what they have seen. When the evidence is passed on to a teacher, Kovacs and Horn home in on the network. Full of tension and unease, and tackling a sensitive issue, The Mattress House is another brilliantly accomplished psychological crime novel by the Austrian winner of the inaugural European Literature Prize.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49534740594961,"sku":"GOR004616234","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0857050281.jpg?v=1751202458"},{"product_id":"sweetness-of-life-book-paulus-hochgatterer-9781847247711","title":"The Sweetness of Life","description":"It is Christmas in the alpine town of Furth am See and a six-year-old girl is playing ludo with her grandfather. The doorbell rings, and the old man goes to answer. The next time the girl sees him, he is lying with his skull broken, his face a red pulp against the white snow. From that time on, she does not speak a single word. Raffael Horn, the psychiatrist engaged to treat the silent child, reluctantly becomes involved in solving the murder along with Detective Superintendent Ludwig Kovacs. Their parallel researches sweep through the town: a young mother who believes her new-born child is the devil; a Benedictine monk who uses his iPod to drown the voices in his head; a high-spending teenager who tortures cats. The psychological profile of this claustrophobic, winter-held town is not reassuring - which, if any, of its inhabitants was the brutal night-time slayer of the suffering girl's grandfather?","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49622922559761,"sku":"GOR004282007","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49640041742609,"sku":"GOR005183245","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53001872834833,"sku":"GOR014689852","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1847247717.jpg?v=1751447278"},{"product_id":"mattress-house-book-paulus-hochgatterer-9780857050304","title":"The Mattress House","description":"Hysteria breaks out in the idyllic town of Furth am See: a young man falls to his death from scaffolding; then a beaten child is brought in to the police, soon followed by others showing similar signs of abuse. The authorities are put under serious pressure to find the perpetrators, but with the child victims too terrified to talk, neither Criminal Commissioner Kovacs nor psychiatrist Raffael Horn seem able to make any headway. The case raises anxiety amongst the residents about the physical punishment of their children, but the truth behind the abuse is more horrifying than anyone could imagine.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49648303800593,"sku":"GOR006346246","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50992678338833,"sku":"GOR007143852","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0857050303.jpg?v=1751107583"},{"product_id":"sweetness-of-life-book-paulus-hochgatterer-9781623658533","title":"The Sweetness of Life","description":"A German bestseller, winner of the European Union Prize for Literature, and longlisted for the German Book Prize in 2006, Paulus Hochgatterer has created a chilling psychological thriller a group of damaged people living in a pleasant and seemingly tranquil Austrian village. It's the Christmas holiday, the presents have been opened, and a six-year-old girl is drinking cocoa and playing with her grandfather. The doorbell rings, and the old man gets up. The next time the girl sees her grandfather, he is lying by the barn, his skull broken; his face a red pulp against the white snow. From that time on, she does not speak a single word. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAlong with Detective Superintendent Ludwig Kovacs, Raffael Horn, the psychiatrist engaged to treat the silent child, reluctantly becomes involved in solving the murder. Their parallel researches sweep through the town: a young mother who believes her new-born child is the devil; a Benedictine monk who uses his iPod to drown the voices in his head; a high-spending teenager who tortures cats. With his background as a child psychiatrist, Hochgatterer draws back the veil of normality and presents a disconcerting portrait of a winter-held town filled with unsavory inhabitants.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50394796392721,"sku":"CIN1623658535G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1623658535.jpg?v=1751183301"},{"product_id":"day-my-grandfather-was-a-hero-book-paulus-hochgatterer-9780857059499","title":"The Day My Grandfather Was a Hero","description":"A beautifully observed novel about how individual acts of bravery can change the course of history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51698415304977,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51698416484625,"sku":"GOR010738522","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52323557015825,"sku":"NGR9780857059499","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0857059491.jpg?v=1751440251"},{"product_id":"sweetness-of-life-book-paulus-hochgatterer-9781847243881","title":"The Sweetness of Life","description":"An old man has his skull broken on a winter's night. His seven-year-old granddaughter finds him and refuses to speak a single word afterwards. Raffael Horn, a psychologist engaged to treat the child, becomes reluctantly involved in solving the crime. Detective Superintendent Bruno Kovacs sits in snowbound beer gardens by day and peers through binoculars at night. Year-end crimes are always a bother, he finds, not least because they disrupt his erotic schedule with Marlene, the owner of a second-hand shop. And although he doesn't mind an excuse to extract himself from Marlene's romantic New Year plans, this victim, he is quite sure, will keep him busy well in to January.A psychopathic father beats his daughters, a jogging Benedictine monk hears voices that do not come from heaven, a retired postman contemplates suicide, and a young mother believes her new-born child is the devil...The psychological profile of this small town is far from reassuring - but which member of its population was the nocturnal visitor responsible for the brutal slaying?","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52649087729937,"sku":"GOR001626079","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52696585568529,"sku":"GOR003653937","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781847243881.jpg?v=1762084363"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-paulus-hochgatterer.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}