Friedrich Ani: "I miss my missing persons"
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Your new novel is based on a true, very tragic story. which made considerable headlines eight years ago.
Friedrich Ani: The background story is that of the nine-year-old Peggy Knobloch, which disappeared in 2001 in the area near Hof in Franconia. From the very beginning, I have followed the reporting very closely and obtained further information through my contacts to the missing persons office. Of course, I changed the case for the novel.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: What happened then?
Friedrich Ani: The girl was suddenly gone and has not appeared until today. Not dead or alive. A mentally retarded man was arrested. First he made a confession. After one and a half days, he revoked it, but it did not help him because his lawyer was too weak. The man was later convicted of murder. He is a psychiatrist and continues to assert his innocence. There is still no evidence, no corpse. Now another lawyer is trying to retrial, because there are definitely false testimonies and gross errors in the investigation work.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Disappeared and missing are the central theme of your books. Why?
Friedrich Ani: For me it is a life topic. I always wanted to get away. Once, I was a really lost man. At 18, I was away for a few months and was searched by the police. Do not ask me where I was - I will not tell.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: You have become acquainted with the stories about the policeman Tabor south. "Death does not barred" is now the third case of the commissioner and former monk Polonius Fischer.
Friedrich Ani: Yes. And it will be the last one.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Why that?
Friedrich Ani: I miss my missing people. And that's why Tabor will return south.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: The almost legendary missing person investigator who said goodbye a few years ago without any big words and has also disappeared. Where was he?
Friedrich Ani: He worked as a waiter in Cologne. Now he hires a detective agency and can act outside the police structures. In a sense, as a freelancer. I hope to be able to develop myself as I write. After another police issue novel I do not care. That's just not enough for me.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: The return from the south is a bit sudden.
Friedrich Ani: I even wanted to let him emerge in "Totsein barred". I liked the idea of letting the two different commissioners clash. The publisher has decided against it.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Where are the biggest differences between fisherman and south?
Friedrich Ani: South is an intuitive person. He has a facing human vision and is a personal cop. Fischer is very rational. Although he has gained a deep spiritual experience through his experience in the monastery, he regards other people with great coolness and sobriety.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Together, both of them are the scene of their cases - time and again, Munich appears in your novels, as it did this time. What significance does the city have for you?
Friedrich Ani: It's my city, I know it well. For me Munich is just as crazy as other big cities too. If I lived elsewhere, my stories would be somewhere else.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde.com: Can you imagine living somewhere else?
Friedrich Ani: No. Where should I go? I am a forced munich. I just can not get away.
