The Spoke: A Sergeant Studer Mystery - Softcover

Glauser, Friedrich

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1904738273 ISBN 13: 9781904738275

Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press, 2009

Synopsis

Praise for Friedrich Glauser’s other Sergeant Studer novels:

“Fever is a deviously plotted procedural. Not many can outdo Friedrich Glauser.”—The New York Times

“This gem contains echoes of Dürrenmatt, Fritz Lang’s film M and Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. Both a compelling mystery and an illuminating finely wrought mainstream novel, Matto’s Realm will make it clear to American readers why the German language prize for detective fiction is named after Glauser.”—Publishers Weekly

“Thumbprint is a fine example of the craft of detective writing in a period which fans will regard as the golden age of crime fiction.”—The Sunday Telegraph

This is the fifth, and last, novel in the much-acclaimed Sergeant Studer series. Why must the festive dinner in the Hirschen Inn be interrupted? A murder puts an end to the wedding celebration of Studer’s daughter. A man is found with a sharpened bicycle spoke embedded in his back, and a suspect is quickly arrested—a bit too quickly, thinks Studer. Property speculation, usury, and betrayed love find their way into this tightly written mystery novel that calls on Studer’s intuitive, often absurd, yet efficient police methods.

The Spoke, a European crime classic, was first published in 1937. It has been translated into six languages. This is its first publication in English.

Friedrich Glauser is a legendary figure in European crime writing. He was a morphine and opium addict much of his life and began writing crime novels while he was an inmate at the Swiss insane asylum Waldau.

About this title

About the Author:

Diagnosed a schizophrenic, addicted to morphine and opium, Glauser spent the greater part of his life in psychiatric wards, insane asylums and prison. His Sergeant Studer novels have ensured his place as a cult figure in Europe. Mike Mitchell has translated some thirty books and won the Schlegel-Tieck German translation prize.

From Publishers Weekly:

Originally published in 1937, the fifth and final Det. Sgt. Jakob Studer mystery (after The Chinaman) offers just enough eccentricity to support the author's reputation as the Swiss Simenon. The Bern policeman and his wife are on holiday in the town of Schwarzenstein, where their daughter is getting married, when a man, Jean Stieger, is found dead in the Hôtel zum Hirschen, stabbed with a sharpened bicycle spoke. The local police take the obvious suspect, bicycle mechanic Ernst Graf, into custody. Studer, however, isn't convinced they have their man. Then Stieger's financier boss is poisoned to death. As Studer investigates, using his own peculiar method of ratiocination, he discovers any number of suspects in what is essentially a variant on the classic locked-room murder puzzle. If the forensic methods the detective employs appear quaint to the contemporary reader, that's half the fun. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1904738273
• ISBN 13: 9781904738275
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 197