The Hanging Artist Jon Steinhagen 9781781086476

"Trust me," the insect repeated.

Franz did not.

What if Franz Kafka did not succumb to tuberculosis at the age of 40? What if he awoke the day after his supposed death to find himself attended by the giant insect he once imagined in his own story The Metamorphosis?

And what if he were recruited by a mysterious agency to investigate a rash of bizarre, mysterious murders plaguing 1924 Vienna? Murders that are possibly connected to an equally mysterious performer who commits suicide every night at the music hall (but cannot be connected to any crimes)?

Jon Steinhagen lives in what is known (somewhat affectionately) as The Chicagoland Area, near the historic Brookfield Zoo. His writing career began in theatre, first as a composer and lyricist for several musicals (including The Arresting Dilemma of Mr. K, a musical adaptation of Kafka's The Trial), then as resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists. Somewhere along the way he began writing stories, too, and many are collected in The Big Book of Sounds (Black Lawrence Press).