Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Paperback | Pages: 208 pages Rating: 3.73 | 8225 Users | 340 Reviews
Itemize Books To Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1)
| Original Title: | Der Richter und sein Henker |
| ISBN: | 0395044995 (ISBN13: 9780395044995) |
| Edition Language: | German |
| Series: | The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1 |
| Characters: | Kommissär Bärlach |
| Setting: | Bern,1948(Switzerland) |
Narration Supposing Books Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1)
"The difference between humans and wild animals is that humans pray before they commit murder."
-Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990), Swiss novelist and dramatist
In his short review of this extraordinary novel, my good friend Mark Hebwood from London wrote: "Loved it! This is a bit like taking the essence of detective novels and distilling it down to concentrate. Great plot, excellent twists, and great finale. I immediately bought all other detective novels he wrote."
Thanks, Mark! Likewise, all Friedrich Dürrenmatt detective novels are now on my to-be-read list. And I’m not usually a fan of detective mysteries, to say the least - other than a handful of those old classics like Chandler’s The Big Sleep and Hammett’s The Thin Man, no dick fiction for me, thank you. But I am a big fan of tight, penetrating existential novels such as The Stranger and Nausea, and, let me tell you, The Judge and His Hangman is every bit as tight and as penetrating and as existential as these two French classics.
To say anything about plot more than a brief sketch would be to say too much since nearly every page contains subtle turns and developments that will keep a reader mesmerized from beginning to end. And that’s not overstatement as I’m not the only one to pass such a glowing judgement - literary critic and acclaimed author, Kay Boyle, likewise wrote how this Swiss novel holds the reader mesmerized. Usually I take my time with a novel but once I read the first page of The Judge and His Hangman I was hooked – I finished its one hundred pages in one evening, in one sitting.
Anyway, Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s work features old, stogy, fatally ill Commissioner Barlach working on the case of a murdered police officer. The location is in Switzerland, in and around the capital of Berne. There is an element of political intrigue; there’s tension between new school criminology and old-school, small town Barlach; there’s a string of intriguing characters, including a pompous Congressman-Colonel, a bureaucratic chief of police and, one of my personal favorites, a novelist. But, above all, there is the philosophic: the battle of good versus evil, nihilism versus any moral sense, and what it means to live an authentic human life. An absolute must read for anyone attracted to either existentialism or detective novels.
Berne, Switzerland, location of this Friedrich Dürrenmatt novel published in 1950
Declare Out Of Books Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1)
| Title | : | Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1) |
| Author | : | Friedrich Dürrenmatt |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 208 pages |
| Published | : | June 23rd 1972 by Houghton Mifflin Company (first published 1951) |
| Categories | : | Classics. Fiction. European Literature. German Literature. Mystery. Crime |
Rating Out Of Books Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1)
Ratings: 3.73 From 8225 Users | 340 ReviewsComment On Out Of Books Der Richter und sein Henker (The Inspector Bärlach Mysteries #1)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nh722#1 A policeman is dead and Inspector Barlach has a hunch about the murderer. Bernard Hepton reads Friedrich Dürrenmatt's novella.Vintage procedural put out by Pushkin Press -- eyeopening beginning in which a crime scene is totally compromised showing the difference in police tactics. Good, twisty, well written. I'll definitely read the others that have been translated so far.
"The difference between humans and wild animals is that humans pray before they commit murder."-Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990), Swiss novelist and dramatistIn his short review of this extraordinary novel, my good friend Mark Hebwood from London wrote: "Loved it! This is a bit like taking the essence of detective novels and distilling it down to concentrate. Great plot, excellent twists, and great finale. I immediately bought all other detective novels he wrote."Thanks, Mark! Likewise, all
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (Swiss) was primarily known as a playwrite, but wrote several philosophical crime thrillers in which he stamped his own unique mark of how he saw the genre. He had a deep dislike for the predictable plot and formulaic structure of the detective novel. Ive only read two of his books, but I prefer this to his more famous The Pledge , probably more well-known as a corrupted version of it went on to be two successful films. This is the first of his Inspector Barlach novels, and
Read this and other Durrenmatt many years ago. Liked it. It has a complete atmosphere with characters that were memorable and unusual.
Unfortunately I guessed the killer very early. Nevertheless Dürrenmatt's tragic parable on the eternal conflict of good and evil in man, packed in a wonderful criminal story, made the book readable.
How satisfying is it to read a real novel(la) in your third language after only learning it for about a year and a half? VERY. This book is also just amazing. Der Richter is more than a crime novel. It goes so much deeper than that. Sure, there is a murder and the murderer is revealed by the end, but to get there, we learn so much about the characters, who they are, what has made them the way they are, what their motives, their backgrounds, their hopes, and their desires are. And also their
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