The Stronger Sex
Hans Werner Kettenbach
Translated by Anthea Bell
Young lawyer Alexander Zabel has been pressured by the head of his law practice into defending the indefensible: a lying, power obsessed adulterer and ruthless industrialist accused of wrongfully dismissing his assistant and mistress. She is thirty-four, he seventy-eight, a despot who has always had his way, now wheelchair bound and dying of cancer. Alex must deal with a hopeless case, his growing sympathy for a repulsive client and his sexual attraction to Klofft’s elderly wife.
Less a thriller than an investigative and psychological cliff-hanger, this novel examines how eroticism is somehow amplified by a sense of death approaching and presents insights into the corrosive desire for revenge and the narrowing horizons of old age.
