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Old 02-21-2012, 09:00 AM   #12463
poohbear_nc
Now what?
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I'm currently reading the Sergeant Struder mysteries by Friedrich Glauser, who is frequently described as the Swiss Simenon. If so, he was Simenon on drugs - literally. Glauser was a morphine addict who began writing whilst incarcerated in psychiatric asylums and prisons, and created marvelously odd casts of characters that are highly reminiscent of the townspeople Maigret encountered on his trips into a provincial backwater to solve a crime. In Matto's Realm is even set in a psychiatric hospital, where no one notices the hospital director lying dead at the foot of a staircase, although everyone heard him scream. And a nurse lying about his bruises. And an escaped child murdered that no one wants returned. Not to mention the missing money.

This type of "hot house" setting for a crime, where everyone knows each others' secrets & foibles, which must be painstakingly ferreted out by the detective, closely mirrors the Maigret mysteries in which Maigret enters a small village in which everyone knows who the killer is and lies to hide him because he is the brother of the mayor and is the only butcher in 50 miles who can get you a pork roast for Sunday ...... you get the picture.

If you enjoy Maigret, I think you will also enjoy Struder.
The translation (from colloquial Swiss German) is a bit odd in places [every time you read 'bacon' substitute 'ham' to make sense], and the nuances of "du" versus "Sie" in characters addressing one another are lost, but the books are quite readable in English.
Highly recommended for mystery buffs.
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