Report

Outside of the apartment walls the City is lurking – a steadily growing mega-metropolis where the most diverse eras and nationalities, lifestyles and religious beliefs collide. Ben Martin, an archeologist, rarely leaves his home for a good reason – the noise, the smells, but mostly the people are exhausting him. For years now, he has preferred to write a book and dig into the past. But then, a nighttime phone call pulls him out of his chosen isolation: An important ancient map has disappeared, and Ben is forced to go looking for it. On his odyssey through the maelstrom, with a mysterious cabdriver as his sidekick, he finds the dead body of a woman, meets dubious antiques dealers, runs into his ex-wife who he thinks is working for the wrong people, encounters policemen and union officials who are weaving an ever tightening web in which Ben becomes gradually more and more entangled.

In Report, Ulrike Syha presents an action-driven crime novel for the theater, deadpan as Dashiell Hammett, hard-boiled like James Elroy, layered like David Peace. She sends her hero on an apocalyptic real-time journey, filled with biting humor, and leads him to an unexpected destination.