Allen & Unwin The Cleaner book Fiction English Paperback 464 pages

For fans of Child 44, The Lives of Others and Stasi Child, The Cleaner is a gripping thriller that will chill and intrigue as the sins of the past catch up with the secrets of the present.

Pools of blood, scenes of carnage, signs of agonising death - who deals with the aftermath of violence once the bodies have been taken away?Judith Kepler has seen it all. She is a crime scene specialist. She turns crime scenes back into habitable spaces. She is a cleaner. It is at the home of a woman who has been brutally murdered that she is suddenly confronted with her own past. The murder victim knew Judith's secret: as a child Judith was sent to an orphanage under mysterious circumstances - parentage unknown. And the East German secret police were always there, in the background...When Judith begins to ask questions, she becomes the target of some powerful enemies. And nothing will ever be the same again.

Elisabeth Herrmann is an exciting new voice in crime fiction. Her novels have captivated German readers since the publication of The Sitter in 2005 and have reached a broader audience with the subsequent adaptation into TV movies of The Sitter and The Cleaner. Elisabeth lives in Berlin with her daughter.