Greed: An Arranged Marriage Dark Billionaire Romance (A Sinful Empire Book 1)

Product Information

On to the story: I’ll use the book blurb so I don’t give much away (Not that there is much more to the plot than what is here): “Greed is the story of Kurt Janisch, an ambitious but frustrated country policeman, and the lonely women he seduces. It is a thriller set amid the mountains and small towns of southern Austria, where the investigation of a dead girl's body in a lake leads to the discovery of more than a single crime. In her signature style, Jelinek chronicles the exploitative nature of relations between men and women, and the cruelties of everyday life.” We only learn the names of a few of them, and even when those characters are featured she often prefers to describe them in much more general terms -- 'the man', 'the woman'; Janisch is often also featured in his role (of Gendarm) rather than personal identity.

Goodreads Kings of Sin Series by Ana Huang - Goodreads

Peu importent donc les aléas de l'intrigue, les personnages n'intéressent que dans la mesure où leurs comportements sont typiques d'une couche sociale ou d'une mentalité, d'un sexe ou d'une opinion. A partir de l'observation circonstanciée de détails et de faits multiples, l'attention se fixe d'abord sur le désastreux état du monde et ses affligeants modes d'existence." - Wilfred Schiltknecht, Le Temps There is something of a plot to Greed: one of the available women with a promising house Janisch has sunk his claws into is Gerti. The country policeman is obsessed with two things: sex and real estate. He’s in debt and he courts older women to get them to sign their houses over to him with an annuity type of deal so they can continue to live in it but the house will become his when they die. We only get details about the latest older woman he has seduced, but apparently she is the third. He takes advantage of his police role, hitting on women when he stops them for a traffic violation or when they are involved in a traffic accident – he can see all their personal details on their driving license. By the way, he’s married with an adult son following in his footsteps. His son, also married, is waiting for his wife’s mother to die so his son and his wife can get the house.My love, you can nail a mirror to the wall over there, if you like, in the middle of the furniture, which you will additionally choose with premeditation. [The policeman talks the women into renovating their houses the way he wants them.] But please don’t go! You can nail the whole house to yourself, but please don’t go! I would otherwise have to prepare myself to become lonely.” She is not his usual type of conquest -- not even sixteen yet, she doesn't offer much real estate potential yet. Nur als Beispiel: In folgender Szene geht es darum, dass Polizisten wegen der verschwundenen Gabi eine Hausbefragung im Dorf durchführen. Stattdessen hangelt sich Jelinek hier von einem Gedanken zum anderen über das Thema Gott hindurch. Im Folgenden eine lange Passage. Wer mag, kann gerne weiterspringen (S. 413f):

Hierarchy: The Whitewashing of Indigenous Before Maslow’s Hierarchy: The Whitewashing of Indigenous

Jelinek's characters are agents of ideology, more caricatures than personalities. (...) Greed inverts the storybook picture of an alpine paradise." - Ben Naparstek, Financial Times Set amid the splendor of London drawing rooms and gilded Venetian palazzos, The Wings of the Dove is the story of Milly Theale, a naïve, doomed American heiress, and a pair of lovers, Kate Croy and Merton Densher, who conspire to obtain her fortune. In this witty tragedy of treachery, self-deception, and betrayal, Henry James weaves together three ill-fated and wholly human destinies unexpectedly linked by desire, greed, and salvation.a b Hensher, Philip (1 October 2006). "The lady in the lake". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 10 April 2012.

Greed (Jelinek novel) - Wikipedia

a b Ellmann, Lucy (28 October 2006). " 'I can't keep up with myself' ". The Guardian . Retrieved 10 April 2012. Elfriede Jelinek is an Austrian playwright and novelist, best known for her novel, The Piano Teacher. How low can these women go? Imagine an older woman letting the policeman bring an underage girl into her home for the policeman to have sex with while she is there. That’s the girl who was killed and whose body was found in the lake. Do we have a suspect here? By the way, some blurbs describe this as a “thriller” – it’s not. The killing of the young girl is peripheral to the main story. And, while we follow some of the police procedures in their investigation, it’s definitely not a police procedural or a detective story.The investigation -- in which Janisch also participates -- doesn't really get very far; the death remains mostly a mystery. Its dark worldview -- with specifically Austrian conditions and politics certainly coloring the overall feel ("soon the whole world will be Carinthia", she suggests, in one of the most amusing asides -- Carinthia notoriously being the 'brownest' (as in lingeringly Nazi-brown) of the Austrian provinces, with Jörg Haider governor at the time the action takes place) -- and arguably ridiculously simplistic (and/or exaggerated) in its presentation of the sexes and their roles.