Short Circuit

"An act of intricate, puzzle-minded fabulism. Part Italo Calvino and part Ed McBain."-Jim Lewis, Author of New York Times Notable Book Ghosts of New York "A playful literary mystery. . . . Fans of Anthony Horowitz will find a lot to like."-Publishers Weekly A clever, electrifying puzzle of a novel, inspired by MC Escher's optical illusions, in which two mirrored plots-a man waiting for an electrician and a mafia informant entering witness protection-delightfully converge. Franz Escher is waiting for the electrician. His power outlet has a loose connection. To pass the time, he buries himself in a book about a Mafioso-turned-informant Elio Russo. Elio is in jail, awaiting his imminent release into witness protection. He has betrayed so many people that he fears for his life. Unable to sleep, he lies awake at night reading a book about a man named Franz Escher who's waiting for the electrician. His power outlet has a loose connection. . . So begins Wolf Haas's Short Circuit, an inventive new take on the detective novel. Styled after one of M. C. Escher's impossible drawings, its two stories gradually intertwine only to solve each other, culminating in one final short circuit. A phenomenon after its German publication, this brilliantly entertaining novel promises to defy all expectation.

Wolf Haas was born in 1960 and has received multiple international prizes, including the Bremen Literature Prize, the Wilhelm Raabe Prize, and the Jonathan Swift Prize. His novels include Property, which won the 2024 Erich Kästner Prize; The Weather Fifteen Years Ago; Defense of the Missionary Position; Young Man; as well as nine Detective Brenner crime novels. He lives in Vienna.