Der Gast von Tisch 7

Vierzig Jahre lang kam er jeden Tag. Heute ist sein Tisch leer.

Lena is a translation student who waits tables at the Café Adler in Vienna's second district. Every day at three o'clock, Herr Weiss sits at table seven: one Melange, one apple strudel, one game of chess against himself.

Then he stops coming. Taped under his table she finds an envelope - a key, and three words that change everything: Keine Polizei.

From the Malzgasse to the Praterstern, from the Augarten out to a body in the reeds at Lake Neusiedl, Lena has one week to work out what an old man was hiding - and why someone is willing to kill for a small painting from 1928.

Most "beginner" German readers are not beginner books. This one is. Present and perfect tense only. No passive, no genitive, no relative clauses, no Konjunktiv. Sentences average six words.

• A word list at the bottom of every single page. Every new word, translated, right where you meet it. No dictionary. No flipping to the back. No guessing.
• A real thriller, not a textbook. Fourteen short chapters with an actual plot, written for adults.
• Exercises at the back, never in the story. Comprehension, true/false and gap-fill for every chapter, with a full answer key - kept out of the way so your reading never breaks.
• A free audiobook, narrated slowly and clearly, so you can read and listen at the same time. Scan the QR code in the back of the book and start listening - no account, no extra cost.
• Real Vienna. The Mumbgasse, the Augarten, Praterstern, the Seestadt, Mörbisch am See. Written by someone who knows the streets.

If you have studied German for a few weeks and you are tired of books that promise A1 and deliver B1 - start here.