New Reviews: Cutler, Forrester, Macbain, Morgan, Nesser, Preston, Rankin, Von Schirach, Welsh

Here are 9 new reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today:

Lizzie Hayes reviews Judith Cutler's Burying the Past, the fourth in the Chief Superintendent Fran Harman series;

Terry Halligan reviews James Forrester's second in the Clarenceaux, Elizabethan series, The Roots of Betrayal;

Amanda Gillies reviews the first in the Pliny the Younger series by Bruce Macbain: Roman Games which now has a UK release;

Fidelis Morgan, author of a well-loved historical series, switches to modern day with The Murder Quadrille, reviewed here by Susan White;

Lynn Harvey reviews the paperback release of Hakan Nesser's Hour of the Wolf, tr. Laurie Thompson, the seventh in the Van Veeteren (and team) series;

JF reviews Australian author Luke Preston's Dark City Blue an ebook from Momentum, the digital-only wing of Pan Macmillan Australia;

Maxine Clarke reviews Ian Rankin's Standing in Another Man's Grave which sees the return of Rebus;

Earlier this week I reviewed on the blog, Ferdinand von Schirach's The Collini Case, tr. Anthea Bell

and Michelle Peckham reviews Louise Welsh's: The Girl on the Stairs set in Berlin.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Review: The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach

The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach translated by Anthea Bell, September 2012, 190 pages, Michael Joseph, ISBN: 0718159195

THE COLLINI CASE is a short, powerful and important crime novel, one that has played a part in the setting up of a (German) Ministry of Justice committee into looking at the effects of the past on the current state of the Ministry.

The book opens in Berlin with the clinical description of a murder and the subsequent surrender of the murderer to the police. The killer, Herr Collini, originally from Italy, admits his guilt but refuses to say any more. The public defender on call is the young, newly trained but enthusiastic Caspar Leinen and he accepts the case. He then finds, however, that he has a personal connection to the victim, nonetheless his mentor says he must be a lawyer and defend the man irrespective of his feelings.

Caspar however has an uncooperative client and is left on the brink of a disastrous trial but a chance remark puts him on the right track to defending his client.

After the rather chilly start, a la Andrea Maria Schenkel, the story moves into warmer territory and becomes extremely moving with the horrific and inexplicable murder becoming more understandable. The reader and Caspar see two sides to the victim and murderer. The latter half of the story is a gripping courtroom drama and a reminder of what must not ever be forgotten.

Also worth seeking out is the thematically related film, Music Box, starring Jessica Lange and Armin Muller-Stahl which made a huge impression on me in 1989 and is available on DVD (2007).