Sybille Ruge: More knit, less shit 

2025. Job verloren. Mit Stricken angefangen. Wie ein Junkie im Wollladen rumgetrieben. Cashmere- und Yakwolle noch wertvoller eingeschätzt, wenn ich gekauft hatte. Tendenz entwickelt, das eigene Können zu überschätzen bei simultan auftretendem Minderwertigkeitsgefühl. Anfängersyndrom. Unmengen an Werkzeug gekauft und nachträglich als Weg der Vervollkommnung rechtfertigt. Festgestellt, dass deutsche Hunde gestrickte Klamotten tragen. Im Traum einem Husky ein Mäntelchen angezogen. Zerfleischt worden. KI konsultiert. Bekannnter Hund steht für positive Erinnerung. Scheiße, ich kenn den Hund nicht. Weitergestrickt. Denken in zwei Kategorien entwickelt: Fertig oder nicht fertig, folglich systematisch den Aufwand unterschätzt.

Hartnäckige Tagesvisionen von Penelope, nur nicht gewusst, auf was ich warte. Widerwillen gegen Auftrennen bei klarer Sicht auf erfolglose Projekte. Festgestellt, dass ich einer Obsession erlegen bin. Zwangshandlung ab 6 Uhr morgens. Im DMS-5 nachgeschlagen. Obsessive–compulsive disorder. Betont mehr die dynamische Seite von Gedanke und Handlung als in älteren medizinischen Handbüchern. Gefühl von eigener Verpuppung in einer Metamorphose von Gucci zu Selbstgestrickt. Versuch, mich vom Stricken abzuhalten. Neuen Roman geschrieben. 
 

Text aus „10 Stunden außer Dienst“. – Sybille Ruge hat mit „Davenport 160 x 90“ und „9mm Cut“ zwei Aufsehen erregende Thriller vorgelegt. Dazu bei uns: Joachim Feldmann, „Subtile Meisterschaft„, Alf Mayer: „Der Medusa niemals ins Gesicht schlagen„, sowie Sonja Hartl, dann Alf Mayer „Geld verträgt kein Gewissen“ und ein Lokaltermin bei Sybille Ruge – und ihren Stoffen: Ein Gespräch über Stoffe, Textildesign und Textildruck, den Modeschöpfer Issey Miyake und Haute Couture aus Mitlödi im Glarner Tal.

Im Januar 2026 beginnt beim WDR die Produktion der Hörspielfassung von „Davenport 160 x 90“

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Lisa Sandlin: The Box

Around September I received a box so precisely and tightly wrapped it was necessary to use both a knife and scissors to get inside it. I thought my friend must have sent me something extremely fragile. Wineglasses? Meissen figurine? Soap bubbles? No, the smoothly-taped box was far too heavy. When I finally got past its wrapping, I found it held just what I should have expected—did expect, actually—given what my friend and I had in common: books.

Mystery books, a dozen of them. The ones you read collecting clues, judging the reliability of characters, alibis, the truthfulness of witnesses, and following on the heels of a charismatic detective. These books were all written by the same author, whom I had not previously read: Donna Leon, an American-born writer who lived in Venice. She set her novels there, in the city built on water.

I was recovering from an injury and had a lot of time. I opened one. Straightaway I fell into the life of Commissario Guido Brunetti. Along with the Commissario came his pompous Sicilian boss, a fashionista/hacker secretary, his faithful righthand man, Vianello, whose passion is ecology. Brunetti is married to Paola, a witty literature professor who is also a dazzling cook. She is always praising Henry James and carrying large, steaming bowls to the family table. It’s a pleasure to imagine Dottoressa Brunetti’s cabinets, stacked with serving bowls and platters hand-painted with lemons on a field of midnight blue, pears, fat fishes.

Not to mention the food inside these dishes. Food is not a footnote to the mysteries but an essential complement. The intermission between dead bodies, speeding boats, and police business. Brunetti has an irrepressible appetite. He splashes from a canal and sloshes home to involtini with the first green asparagus of the season, frittata with zucchini and stuffed turkey breast, pumpkin and raisin cake. He and Vianello stop in to a neighborhood bar for some refreshing tramezzini: prosciutto and tomato, prosciutto and olive, egg salad, tuna fish and olives . . .

The food, however, does not outdo the crime, committed by all social strata and ethnicities. A Roma pickpocket child is found drowned. A tempestuous opera star is stalked by an unknown person whose calling card is yellow roses. A chain-smoking old woman guards an extraordinary art collection in her tiny apartment. The bureaucrat who knocks on Brunetti’s door to inform him that his apartment doesn’t exist is later found dead beneath a scaffolding. One prestigious Venetian library has lost pages cut from priceless books.

The endings were, for me, unexpected, and not just because they were mysteries revealed. The wealthy and well-connected often avoid the consequences of their crimes. We in the US are enraged at our current lack of accountability. American films and TV have usually reflected the guilty receiving their just deserts in the end. But this is Italy. There, as in other places, status and money are stout insulation from criminal activities. Brunetti knows the unwritten rules. At the end of such a case, he collects another bellyful of bitterness and trudges home to be consoled by Paola’s apple cake, “the one with lemon and orange juice and enough Grand Marnier to permeate the whole thing and linger on the tongue forever.”

Because the Commissario walks or travels by boat to and from crime scenes, we’re treated to his descriptions of Venice’s Gothic and Byzantine palazzi, bridges, walkways and waterways. Brunetti is a lifelong Venetian but the beauty of his city never escapes his attention.

I read all dozen books. My friend sent me another boxful, just as powerfully wrapped as the first. I read those. And more. They are piled around my bed. Grazie to my friend. Grazie mille to Ms. Leon for providing me with protection against boredom, a travelogue, an education in Italian cuisine. Not to mention mystery, murder, and as much justice as can be had.

Lisa Sandlin is the author of  The Do-Right, out in Germany as Ein Job für Delpha – which made No. 2 on CrimeMag’s Top Ten List 2017. The  second Delpha-Wade, Family Business (The Bird Boys) also appeared within TW´s Suhrkamp Edition and was shortlisted for the Edgar. Exclusive for CrimeMag-Readers: The Way Fayann Found, a story-ette for Delpha, by Lisa Sandlin; Katja Bohnet in CrimeMag über Lisa Sandlins Ein Job für Delpha.

2024 erschien in der TW-Edition der dritte Delpha-Wade-Roman Der Auftrag der Zwillinge. Im Dezember 2024 kam in den USA ihr Roman Sweet Videlia heraus.

Donna Leon is published in German by Diogenes, Zurich. Every book is a destined bestseller. Currently there are 48 titles in print or on the backlist. Many novels have been adapted for (sorry to say, mediocre but pittoresque) televison.