In today’s FT: covering Angela Merkel’s (fictional) new career as a sleuth: Miss Merkel…
You will be familiar with Agatha Christie’s doughty Miss Marple, but what about another mature lady detective? Ex-German Chancellor? Once the most powerful woman in the world? According to the German writer David Safier, there is a modern-day successor to Christie’s sleuth: none less than Miss Merkel. Yes, that Angela Merkel. It would appear that after her punishing stint running Germany, the politician retired to the idyllic village of Kleinfreudenstadt-on-Dumpfsee (‘Small Happy Town on a Dull Lake’) with husband Achim and her pug Putin (so named after the Russian President once surprised her with a massive Labrador to play on her canine phobia). But Merkel finds that country life doesn’t generate the same frisson as dealing with transnational financial meltdowns or erratic US presidents. Soon, she finds a new challenge: solving crime…
