Robert Habeck and Andrea Paluch’s mystery crime in Danish: Superlux acquires rights to THE DEATH OF HAUKE HAIN

A family that falls victim to a nighttime storm surge on the North Sea coast. A survivor who wants to find out the real reason her parents had to die. And a village that doesn’t want to talk about it…

• Robert Habeck is Germany’s vice chancellor and known for his political writings, also published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in Germany
• Major film adaptation airing on ARD in spring 2023
• Rights sold to Denmark (Superlux)

The dike breaks during a once-in-a-century storm tide on the Frisian North Sea coast. The fatalities include Hauke Haien, the builder of the dike, his wife and – apparently – their four-year-old daughter Wienke. After this fateful night Iven Johns, the family’s farmhand, leaves to start a new life in Hamburg.

But, fifteen years later, Wienke suddenly shows up on his doorstep. She wants him to tell her what really happened on that stormy night. Why did her parents have to die? How did Iven save her life? And why did he keep it a secret? Iven decides to drive with Wienke to the village behind the dike to shed light on that fatal night. But the villagers stonewall them: no one wants to talk about the past. And then someone starts threatening Wienke, who really shouldn’t even be alive anymore…