Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the German by Daniel Bowles – published July 2026

In this pleasantly puzzling book, interior decorator Paul is commissioned by the publisher of a design magazine to paint the inside of a huge data center on the fjords of southern Norway.

Paul is a recluse who lives in the Orkney Islands and has a reputation as brilliant in his field. The magazine editor, Cohen, wants him to find the “perfect white” to give a sense of harmony to the colossal amount of data stored within the building. When Paul visits the centre, a solar flare creates a power outage to the databanks. When the power is restored, Paul has vanished.

He reappears in a parallel world that seems like medieval Europe. He is with a young orphaned girl Ildr, who has accidentally shot him with a bow and arrow during a hunt. Together, they flee the forces of a nefarious duke, until they reach a stone city in the edge of a stony desert.

If it sounds like a fairy tale, that is what Kracht has imagined for Paul, who suspects himself that this may be too good to be true; despite all the violence they manage to survive.

It’s a bold step into fantasy literature, though more than once I was left wondering, other than entertainment, what the point of it was. Indeed, take the violence away and it could be a children’s book. Seeking, as I do, for some meaning to it all, I envisage a mixture of Paul’s deteriorating mental state and his boredom and dissatisfaction with the mundanity of the corporate world he has ended up working in.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5