Crossing the Line

Total sales of Mechtild Borrmann’s work in German: 400,000 copies

A high-class award-winning author: Deutscher Krimipreis, Grand Prix des Lectrices, nomination for Friedrich-Glauser-Preis and the Crime Cologne Award

Children in homes in the 1950s: Mechtild Borrmann weaves together contemporary history and deeply moving characters 17-year-old Henni is placed in a reform school on account of coffee smuggling and her “pathological lying” — however, that is just part of the truth. She had taken on her dead mother’s responsibilities and was looking after her younger brothers and sisters who ended up in a church-run children’s home, where little Matthias died of pneumonia. That too is also just a part of the truth. In her own hypnotic and precise language, Mechtild Borrmann tells the story of a woman with a zest for life and who both believes in justice and despairs at it. Embedded in a dark chapter of contemporary history, this novel is as enthralling as it is disturbing.

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Rights sold: France: Lattès/Le Masque; Netherlands: Bruna

  • Publisher: Droemer HC
  • Release: 01.10.2018
  • ISBN: 978-3-426-28179-6
  • 288 Pages
  • Author: Mechtild Borrmann
Crossing the Line
Mechtild Borrmann Crossing the Line
Nadine Marga
© Nadine Marga
Mechtild Borrmann

Mechtild Bormann, born 1960, spent her childhood and youth on the Lower Rhine. Before she turned to writing, she worked in the food service industry, and as a dance and theatre pedagogue. Her crime novel Wer das Schweigen bricht became a bestseller and was awarded the German Crime Writing Prize 2012. Mechthild Borrmann lives in Bielefeld, where she works as a free-lance author. In 2015, her novel “Der Geiger” was awarded the Readers’ Prize of ELLE/France.