Morgue Drawer Four

Coroner is the perfect job for Dr. Martin Gänsewein, who spends his days in peace and quiet autopsying dead bodies for the city of Cologne. Shy, but scrupulous, Martin appreciates his taciturn clients—until the day one of them starts talking to him. It seems the ghost of a recently deceased (and surprisingly chatty) small-time car thief named Pascha is lingering near his lifeless body in drawer number four of Martin’s morgue. He remains for one reason: his “accidental” death was, in fact, murder. Pascha is furious his case will go unsolved—to say nothing of his body’s dissection upon Martin’s autopsy table. But since Martin is the only person Pascha can communicate with, the ghost settles in with the good pathologist, determined to bring the truth of his death to light. Now Martin’s staid life is rudely upended as he finds himself navigating Cologne’s red-light district and the dark world of German car smuggling. Unless Pascha can come up with a plan—and fast—Martin will soon be joining him in the spirit world. Witty and unexpected, Morgue Drawer Four introduces a memorable (and reluctant) detective unlike any other in fiction today.

Morgue Drawer Four was shortlisted for Germany’s 2010 Friedrich Glauser Prize for best crime novel.

Jutta Profijt was born in 1967 in Ratingen, Germany. After finishing school, she lived abroad working as an au pair, an importer/exporter, a coach to executives and students, and a business English instructor. She published her first novel in 2003 and today works as a freelance writer and translator. Her first novel featuring coroner Martin Gänsewein, Morgue Drawer Four, was shortlisted for Germany’s 2010 Friedrich Glauser Prize for best crime novel.

Erik J. Macki worked as a cherry-orchard tour guide, copy editor, web developer, and German and French teacher before settling into his translation career--probably an inevitable choice, as he has collected foreign-language grammars, dictionaries, and language-learning books since childhood and to this day is not above diagramming sentences when duty so calls. A former resident of Cologne and Münster, Germany, and of Tours, France, he did his graduate work in Germanics and comparative syntax. He now translates novels and nonfiction for adults and children from his home in Seattle, where he lives with his family and their black lab, Zephyr.