DEADLY DEALINGS: A man is shot right in front of his office door, ripping private detective Robert Tarne out of his sweet daydreams. Why here and why now, why him? Is it just a coincidence? And what about the blood-stained key that the dying man manages to hand over to him just before the cops arrive? In Deadly Dealings, the latest Robert Tarne crime novel, we meet a kaleidoscope of characters, including shadowy elite police units of the German government. With millions at stake and all sides claiming to be on the "right side", Tarne is challenged as never before. The action takes place in The Ruhr Area (in German: Ruhrgebiet), the sprawling, gritty heart of the historic coal and industrial zone along the Ruhr River, still the most populous area of Germany. It is a cultural and economic melting pot, almost a country in itself. Readers will be surprised to learn that the proper and organized Germans also operate in an very gray area when it comes to the law. This is a novel about German culture you don´t read about in the tourist guides!

JOACHIM STENGEL was born in Stralsund. He has been living in The Ruhr Area since 1960. He holds a PhD in Psychology and works as a psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice. The fundamental principle that governs his life is that a life without creativity is unimaginable. After training in the graphic arts industry, he operated several scene pubs in The Ruhr Area for several years before obtaining his vocational college diploma through the second educational path, studying in Bochum, and earning his doctorate. Throughout this time, his artistic work never ceased. He first encountered oil painting at the age of 12. Inspired by his training in the graphic arts industry and influenced by Andy Warhol, he created numerous screen prints, mainly on canvas, in the 1970s. It was also during this time that he gained his first experiences with the medium of film and produced several underground films. In the 1980s, he returned to oil painting. At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium, as a student of Gabriele Wilpers, he refined and expanded his technique and created the project "100 Portraits," which was presented at ARKA on Zollverein in 2013. The medium of film returned in the form of music videos, among others, for the group Tape Five. During his studies, he began his first literary works. His experiences in the gastronomy sector and the study of psychology have made him a keen observer and enthusiastic chronicler of The Ruhr Area, which is reflected in his crime novels. So far, he has published 3 crime novels featuring the hard-boiled detective Robert Tarne, along with an anthology of 19 short stories and 3 thrillers set against the backdrop of the Corona pandemic.