Extract from Tod und Teufel (Death and the Devil)

Frank Schätzing was born in Cologne, Germany. He is a Creative Director for advertising companies and co-founder of an advertising agency in Cologne. The best-seller, Tod und Teufel (Death and the Devil), an historical crime novel, is his first work, published in 1995. Since then, he has published six books, the most recent of which is Der Schwarm (The Swarm), published in 2004.

Tod und Teufel is set in medieval Cologne, at the time of the construction of the Cologne Cathedral. The protagonist, Jacob ‘the Fox,’ petty thief and idle trickster, is the only – and unintentional – witness to the murder of the Cathedral’s master builder, and is consequently hunted by the assassin, Urquhart ‘the Wolf’. Jacob is then drawn in to the intrigue and politics surrounding the death, and, with the help of newly-won friends, attempts to spoil the plot of some of the richest families in Medieval Cologne, and survive the hunt of the Wolf.