Crime and Guilt

Reviews / Votes

Small literary gems * The Times * Mesmerizing * New York Times * A strange and scary fictionalised casebook -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent, Books of the Year * What makes these tales stand out are not the extremes of their protagonists but the narrator's voice: resistant to melodrama, dryly funny...never less than humane. If Crime shows the arbitrary nature of justice, it also backs the underdogs -- Adrian Turpin * Financial Times * A wonderful debut, gripping from the very first page and not a word out of place * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung * A magnificent storyteller * Der Spiegel * The storytelling is poised and beautiful -- William Leith * Evening Standard * The stories von Schirach tells here are compelling in their own right but he elevates them to something greater with his calm, precise narration. These are like 20 or more mini episodes of The Killing (acutally, they would make for an amazing television series). They are masterpieces in miniature. I cannot recommend them highly enough * Me & My Big Mouth * Schirach is a defence lawyer in his native Germany, and these tales of individual crimes read almost like a real-life case-by-case study -- Lesley McDowell * Independent * My book of the year: a dazzling double-bill exploring unusual criminal cases... hypnotic, heartbreaking prose -- Christopher Fowler * Financial Times *