The novel "Pigeons in the Grass" describes one day of a large West German city during the beginning of the so-called "economic miracle." The writer shows the unsteadiness and fragility of well-being created in the atmosphere of the Cold War. The novel "Greenhouse" conveys the atmosphere of the backstage parliamentary struggle. In the novel "Death in Rome," the writer's talent is revealed with particular force. V. Köppen writes about the ominous symptoms of neo-Nazism in Germany. The image of the seasoned SS man Yudeyan is a satirical generalization that is unparalleled in modern German literature.