Moritz Wenk is an averagely unsuccessful painter, and Judith Wenk, a dental hygienist, are a close and harmonius couple. During a week in a very hot summer, in perhaps Zurich, he's found work cutting out and painting shop-window dummies for a costume rental firm. There he meets a small cast of extras: a befriended couple, Kurt and Silvia, who are having difficulties, Wenk's mother, a successful painter colleague of his (Rotzel), a little erotic confrontation with a trainee in the store, and another with an ex-model of his (Maya). It's his birthday, he gets to be 38. Cold Shoulder is a chamber novel told with Werner's characteristic charm and spleen that will delight current Werner fans and attract new ones as well.