Hell Hath No Fury is the unoriginal title of what translates as The Cock Is Dead. It tells the story of how a nice, gentle woman suddenly finds herself in a position where, unfortunately, she has to kill her best friend and a couple of other people.

Rosemarie Hirte is respectable, in her early fifties and works in an insurance company, she wears impeccable suits and does not particularly mind coming home to an empty, though very tidy, flat. That is, until she sets eyes on Rainer Witold Engstern, a teacher in the local secondary school who has published a small monograph on painting in the fourteenth century. Rosemarie, who had long since embraced a future as a respectable spinster, suddenly finds herself spying on Witold (as she affectionately chooses to call him), trying to meet him by chance in the street and becoming a phone pest. Not having had great success with relationships earlier in her life, she reckons it would only be fair if at least once she got what she really wanted, even more so as she feels this might well be her last chance. She proceeds to make a pact with God promising to forsake whatever happiness he might have in store for her, if only she could have Witold, please. God, who had not been consulted before, moves in mysterious ways, and has to be helped along. Rosemarie is happy to take the initiative, but finds that she gets more than she had bargained for.

What makes this novel enjoyable is that it is told from the perspective of a very proper, likeable woman, respectable, sympathetic and a little old-fashioned. When she recounts her murderous schemes you hear the all-too-reasonable voice of a confident, dignified and mature lady, ever so slightly tinted with frustration and restraint.

If you ever had murderous thoughts, you will feel strangely at home with this intensely readable book and its humour that seems to stem from a distinctly female point of view.

‘In the evenings, I now had a fixed routine: in the twilight, I would set out with Dieskau to try to meet my dream-man. In the darkness, I would creep around in his garden — without the dog, of course, and only in dark slacks; like a burglar, I had adopted a kind of working outfit. In addition, I would occasionally dial his number, not, I might add, from my own phone (there had been so much talk of phone-tapping, I was too scared), but from a phone-box. I would hear him give his name, sometimes brightly, sometimes sounding weary, and then hang up again at once, knowing that he was at home, maybe sitting at his desk. A second time, I almost collided with his bicycle, this time quite intentionally. He smiled again, just like the first time, and said, in his breath-stopping voice, «Good evening. Still lost in thought, eh?»

I returned the smile, but was unable to come back with anything clever or quick-witted.’ p24