More than love hangs in the balance!

    

    What Horniman does is to use his characters and the novel's plot as a vehicle to explore and parody the anti-Semitism that was rife in Edwardian England.While part of the success of the novel is due to the film's cult status Israel Rank remains a classic comedic novel that explores the antithesis of conventional morality - in short it is a comedy about a serial killer."'There is an old saying, "Murder will out." I am really unable to see why this should be so. I am convinced that many a delightful member of society has found it necessary at some time or other to remove a human obstacle ...'" Israel Rank'Horniman's novel is light, witty, and entertaining, written in an aphoristic sub-Wildean style.' Philip Kemp

    A determined young woman of twenty-five, Rose-Marie is considered a spinster by the inhabitants of the small German town of Jena where she lives with her father, the Professor. To their homes comes Roger, an impoverished but well-born young Englishman who wishes to learn German: Rose-Marie and Roger fall in love. But the course of true love never did run smooth: distance, temperament and fortune divide them. We watch the ebb and flow of love between two very different people and see the witty and wonderful Rose-Marie get exactly what she wants.