A glittering novel about two friends who dare to do things differently.
WILDE MANÖVER
(Wild Maneuvers)
by Judith Keller
Luchterhand Verlag/PRH Germany, September 2023
Big changes happen when no one’s looking: this is Keller’s fearless and irresistibly original story about breaking boundaries and an imaginative revolution – a fierce yet tender novel about two women determined to start something new. But how?
Something happened on that warm summer’s night, in the shopping centre car park. A van was pilfered – was it to do with drugs? Vera and Peli are suspected of being involved, but when the police interview them the two young women don’t shed any light on the mystery. On the contrary: there’s a mermaid in a pool, bicycles arranged in a circle on the train tracks, and an abducted horse – it seems that Vera and Peli have committed a whole series of crimes, one more improbable than the next. And so begins an adventurous search for answers in a city at night-time, as well as a quirky examination of our vanishing present.
Judith Keller, born in Switzerland in 1985, studied creative writing in Leipzig and Biel, and qualified as a German language teacher in Berlin and Bogotá. She has also been an editor at the literary journal Edit. She has won honorary awards from the city and canton of Zurich for her story collection « Die Fragwürdigen » (« The Questionable Ones »).
« I have rarely read anything this refreshing, bold and funny. » – Saša Stanišić
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin. The charge: the abduction of Ukrainian children to Russia. The National Information Office of Ukraine lists over 16,000 very precisely recorded cases – the actual number is probably much higher. 
A daughter has disappeared. She has travelled to Syria to marry a jihadist she met online. Her father Murad blames himself. If he had only told Naima more about his old homeland, which he has left behind mentally, as well as physically; if only he had paid more attention to her feelings of alienation – perhaps then she wouldn’t have gone to a strange country in the name of religion. Murad knows he must find Naima. He contacts human traffickers and travels to the Kurdish territory on the Turkish-Syrian border, where he comes face to face with his past. When the traffickers play him an audio diary recorded by a woman in Raqqa – probably Naima – Murad sets out on a perilous journey into ISIS territory…
Eight young people join a guided hike through Canada’s biggest national park. For the next three weeks, they will experience the wilderness and see the Northern Lights. But even in the wilderness, you can end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. When they witness a crime, the eight have no choice but to run. Lost in the middle of nowhere, they have no equipment and nothing to help them find their way home. They also can’t stand each other. But their only chance of getting out of this alive is to work together.