Sometimes one gets the impression that Martin Suter already thinks of the filming on his Allmen books. The setting speaks for it once before. This time, Allmen goes to Ibiza for a criminal hunt. White houses. Blue sky from which a merciless summer sun pops. Every now and then a trip to the disco. In the end, the forest begins to burn!
Well, you can imagine how Heino Ferch, who gave the Zurich detective three times for the ARD film series, can be with a slight world pain in the SUV drive through the smoked scenery that Suter could probably draw from the wrist: He has his second home the Balearic island. Perhaps this is also the reason why the directions and the traffic situations - Attention, especially between the airport and Ibiza town it seems often to stow - are sometimes as protocol, as they would later serve as evidence of an expense report.
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Martin Suter
Martin Suter invented the figure of Johann Friedrich von Allmen in 2011. Since then, it has served as the centerpiece of a thriller series that works on a simple principle. Allmen is placed in a habitat that used to be his own, but now he can hardly afford it - because Allmen is impoverished. Not out of a bad fate, but out of his own inability: The considerable fortune that his father inherited, he brought through quickly. He had to sell the house, the noble Villa Schwarzenbach. All that remains for him is a right to live in the shabby garden house of the villa and the faithful Carlos, formerly a servant, now a partner. But Allmen is a blender, tough on the edge of cheating. As well as mannered as overdressed and in diffuse Anglo-American tradition, he determines, despite his own financial problems, only in the midst of the upper ten thousand.
A Koi called "Boy"
In the five volumes published so far, Allmen, which is actually specialized in the replacement of rare works of art, was looking for a lot. From rare Art Nouveau miniatures to a USB stick with valuable financial software, the bandwidth was sufficient. In between, someone died and most of the time either Allmen or Carlos or his girlfriend Maria also got into serious danger.
"Allmen and the Koi" is no exception. An American music producer, marked by a serious illness, asks the detective on the island. He has been stolen a koi carp. "Boy" is the name of the fish that did not make its rounds in the pond one morning. Allmen and Carlos go to the carp scene in the city. And because there are overlaps, they take the high society with them.
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Martin Suter
Allmen and the Koi
Publishing company:
Diogenes
Pages:
272
Price:
EUR 22,00
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What happens in the process is quickly told: Carlos gets one over-cooked in the search for the noble animal. An old school friend of Allmen is killed by chance. In addition, involved in the case: nude Scandinavian women (as mentioned, Suter seems to think along the adaptations of his books). By contrast, the wife of the client, who slips under Allmen's blanket on the first night, is completely naked.
In the end, the fish is back where it should be, the murder cleared up, and Allmen and Carlos are back on a plane to Switzerland. Of course in a private plane, to be precise: in a Dassault Falcon.
Many find the stories around Allmen quite simple, especially as the early novels Suters were in quite daring thought experiments - these are completely missing here. The very descriptive language of the Swiss is just as little in every case. In this book, too, he pretty much explains to the reader what is happening, describing every scene, every weather, every garment, every drink, every dish.
Gastronomic robber pistols
Especially the culinary arts play a big role in the sixth "Allmen": There is quite a lot of marinating in this book, such as rice in white wine vinegar and honey and figs in olive oil. If there is a "grilled, stuffed with Frigola toothbream with a classic paella and a sashimi made of thinly sliced pumpkin" is enough, of course, you need secondary gastronomic literature to understand what exactly comes on the plate.
And at the latest when Suter continues to write some pages that you can only eat herons, if you put them in mango juice for four days before, you get to the conclusion: Suter can not possibly take that seriously.
It does not really matter if he does that. Because he tells it so carelessly, with ease and at just the right pace. Two, three hours, and you're done with a general thriller - and felt most of the time well entertained. So you see Suter such gastronomic robber pistols as well as the stereotypes in which he sometimes drifts - just as one forgives his hero the little ripoffs. It is immensely relaxing to see this out-of-time man, this windy guy who is so struggling to play up there, in the Balearic sun.
And it's exciting at least a bit.
