"What you can take, you take": In Vienna, there is a gold rush atmosphere, the Second World War is over, and daring individuals are on the brink of a new life. In his explosive introduction to the "Vienna Files," Peter Rosei connects the dots from post-war corruption to the villas of the established businessmen of the 1980s. He artfully intertwines the life paths of parvenus and bon vivants, professors and politicians, entrepreneurs' wives and successful women into a dense web of relationships, at the center of which are friends Alfred and Georg, the economic miracle child and the anarchist. A richly atmospheric, joyfully narrated piece of prose, it is a portrait of a city where everything is for sale and nothing is sacred...