The thrill of reading is taking a chance on a title you have never heard of, from an author you don't know. Now and then you get an unforgettable gem, superbly written and deserving of the international praise you had yet to discover.
Caspar Leinen has been out of law school for just forty-two days and has put his name on stand by duty with Legal Aid. He gets his first big case when a man walks into an upscale hotel, is admitted to a room, and shoots the 85 year old occupant in the head, before returning to the lobby to announce his crime and await the police. He readily admits that he killed the man, a prominent industrialist and one of the richest men in the Federal Republic. How is Leinen going to to defend this man according to the law? He finds out too late that he was intimately connected to the man and his family, yet he finds this is not enough to recuse himself from his duty to his client. As the jury is selected and the prosecution presents their case, it looks like Leinen's career will be over before it started.
How he manages to work this case is at turns involving, surprising, and thrilling. This is a translation from German and the language used is elegant, sparse and precise, telling us in a simple paragraph just what we need to know while at the same time, opening a world of emotion. The novel is only 190 pages but contains more excitement and tension than current 400 page thrillers. There are points when I was sure Leinen could go no further, and then - against the odds - a breakthrough.
Several times when I was reading it, I had to literally sit up and re read the passage - sometimes due to heartbreak and sometimes shock and surprise, as Leinen introduces another idea to court, or a witness reveals more than the prosecution has asked for.
Brilliant.
The Collini Case is beautifully constructed and an experience to read. Von Schirach is a defence lawyer in Germany, whose previous short story collections Crime and Guilt were huge bestsellers (Crime remained on Der Spiegel's bestseller list for over 54 weeks) and are adapted for film. Translated into over 35 languages, these have made him an internationally celebrated star of German literature. Collini was filmed in 2020. As full and gripping as a legal thriller and built on the technicalities of the law, it also offers everything a serious reader of literature could want.
Highly recommended.
2012 / Hardcover / 190 pages
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