The Thirteen-Year-Old Who Stepped on the Scales and Fell Head Over Heels in Love: "I broke my leg for the first time when I was four. My older brother, along with his even older friends and their even older brothers, had built a ski jump. You built a ski jump by finding a shovel and shoveling snow into a pile. Then you stomped on it. Then the best one went and jumped the farthest. After him, the second-best jumped the second-farthest. Last was my brother. Then me." In this way, the young man learns early on to appreciate the advantage of accidents: comfort chocolate. And he learns the disadvantage of comfort chocolate: being overweight. At 13, he begins a radical diet during summer vacation. Because he was caught off guard by that enchanting smile. The good thing about falling in love: Elsa. The problem with falling in love: Her husband. The truck driver Tscho. With every kilo the young man loses, he sees his chances with her increasing. When she takes him for a drive in her new Renault 5, it further increases his calorie expenditure. And the summer job at the gas station has the great advantage that he always knows exactly when Elsa's husband has just left for Greece or some even more distant country. One day, however, the dreaded truck driver unexpectedly appears between the diesel pump and the gas station shop and makes the young man an offer he can't refuse. biography Wolf Haas was born in 1960 in Maria Alm am Steinernen Meer. After studying linguistics, he spent two years as a university lecturer in Swansea (South Wales). He has received the German Crime Fiction Prize several times for his novels. In 2006, he was awarded the Raabe Prize. Wolf Haas lives as a freelance writer in Vienna. New product