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Well, maybe we should first discuss about what exactly you are talking about... ;-)
Fact is that Dürrenmatt (although being a highly appreciated author, from the point of view of "culture"!) is not really a "bestselling author" in Germany. If you remove from "his" sales figures the number of books that pupils must buy for their school lessons then, well, I don't think that a considerable amount of "deliberately sold" books remains ;-)
As to crime novels, many of my personally preferred authors are *not* from Germany, for example (not intended to be a complete list!):
* Kathy Reichs
* Henning Mankell
* Arnaldur Indriğason
* Ian Rankin
... and I have no doubts that most Germans tend to agree with me here, i.e. if they like to read crime novels at all) they prefer their style of novels over Dürrenmatt.
As to Dürrenmatt, well, his stories are very intellectual, and he likes (or better say: liked) to confront the reader with some social and/or ethical problems, and it is quite obvious that these intellectual aspects were more important to him than to "only" create tension. One of his well-known classics is probably "Das Versprechen", a crime novel with a rather depressing end that is rather opposite to how crime novels usually end... Reading his texts one gets the impression that he must have been a misanthrope.
All this makes his texts a good choice for (e.g.) discussions at school. But to be honest, it is not the kind of literature that I'd prefer as a good read during travelling by train ;-)
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