The Execution of Justice – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Crime novels can be violent, occasionally gory, almost always nerve-wracking but, ultimately, they are designed to be comforting. Life may be grim, but in the end order will be restored. There is always a flicker of light the end of the tunnel. And there’s crime fiction à la Friedrich Dürrenmatt. It can be violent, occasionally ...
The Judge and his Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the author of ‘The Judge and his Hangman’, did not have a high opinion of what he regarded as traditional crime fiction. He was a renowned Swiss dramatist active between the late 1940s and the 1980s, an early proponent of ‘epic theatre’, of which Bertolt Brecht was the most influential author. Besides a ...
The Pledge – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Imagine you are an established crime fiction author meeting by chance a former police chief who, during a long car drive over mountains and across valleys in Switzerland, tells you crime authors are getting it all wrong in their stories. Would you then write a novel about the real-life story the police chief tells you, ...
