In Matto's Realm: A Sergeant Studer Mystery

by Friedrich Glauser and Mike Mitchell

Book Overview

"Despairing plot about the reality of madness and life, leavened with strong doses of bittersweet irony. The idiosyncratic investigation and its laconic detective haven't aged one iota."-- Guardian A child-murderer escapes from a Swiss insane asylum. The stakes get higher when Detective Sergeant Studer discovers the director's body, neck broken, in the boiler room of the madhouse. The intuitive Studer is drawn into the workings of an institution that...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1904738060
• ISBN13: 9781904738060
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press
• Length: 334 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Typically unconventional ending

Like Fever and Thumbprint, the conclusion of this book was sort of unconventional for a detective story but somehow this one was more satisfying. Wonderfully consistent and concise tone of storytelling.

dark period piece police procedural

In the late 1920s in Bern, Dr. Ernst Laduner specifically asks to see Detective Sergeant Jakob Studer as they met in Vienna though the cop does not remember the psychiatrist. Laduner informs Studer that a patient Peter Pieterlen, a child murderer, escaped from the Randlingen Psychiatric Clinic; Studer concludes the psychiatrist is performing a classic CYA especially since another patient director Ulrich Borstli vanished. Studer questions those on duty when Borstli allegedly disappeared and Pieterlen escaped from the asylum. As he continues his investigation in the boiler room, he discovers the murdered corpse of Borstli, whose neck is broken. While his superior and the psychiatrist claim that the murdering maniac Pieterlen killed Borstli before fleeing the crime scene, Studer thinks otherwise. The psychological theories brought forth to accuse the missing patient as the killer makes him wonder if someone is hiding the homicide behind psychological theory that sounds more like mumbo jumbo. IN MATTO'S REALM is a dark period piece police procedural that grips the audience from the moment Studer enters the clinic and never lets go as the sleuth realizes those inside reflect those outside. The strong story line is cast-driven as the audience obtains a deep look at a 1920s German mental asylum accompanied by the prevalent psychological theories of the day. The who-done-it is shrewdly developed so that readers receive a fine detective story used to provide a look at a psychiatric clinic by an insider as author Friedrich Glauser spent time in psychiatric wards where he began his writing career. Harriet Klausner