Petra Hammesfahr is one of the most prominent masters of modern German detective fiction, the author of more than twenty books and several film scripts. We bring to the attention of the Russian reader one of her newest novels, “The Doll Grave Digger,” a psychological thriller that went through 17 editions in Germany alone and was filmed in 2003. Critics compared Ben Schlösser from “The Doll Grave Digger” with the main characters of I. Banks’s “Aspen Factory,” and “The Sound and the Fury” by W. Faulkner, and even “Perfumer” by P. Suskind. He adores dolls, sleeps with them, sometimes takes them away from small children, sometimes breaks them in an incomprehensible rage, then buries them. This might raise concerns, but his mother believes that her sick son is most likely imitating someone. Local residents feel sorry for the harmless fool - but everything changes when girls in the town begin to disappear one after another...