It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour The Murder of Anton Livius by Hansjörg Schneider - translated by Astrid Freuler.
Hansjörg Schneider lives in Basel and began his professional career as a journalist and essayist. He is the author of a number of highly acclaimed plays and of the bestselling Hunkeler crime series, now with ten titles published.
Astrid Freuler lives in Lidney, Gloucestershire. She is a young translator from German and has published translations of non-fiction and fiction, including the crime thriller A Shadow Falls by Andreas Pflüger.
About the book
Inspector Hunkeler is summoned back to Basel from his New Year holiday to unravel a gruesome killing in an allotment garden on the city’s outskirts. An old man has been shot in the head and found in his garden shed hanging from a butcher’s hook.
Hunkeler must deal not only with the quarrelsome tenants of the garden but with the challenges of investigating a murder that has taken place outside his jurisdiction, across the French border in Alsace. The clues lead to the Emmental in Berne, and then events from the last weeks of the Second World War in Alsace come to light, the wounds of which have never healed in the region.
Review
There is a sense, an atmosphere of what will be, will be. Both Hunkeler and those around him seem bone weary and reluctant to deal with the reality of actions taken and left unpunished. The past has finally caught up - like everyone knew it would.
I think the charm of the story is the dry and almost chummy way the main character interacts with everyone else, regardless of which side of morality that person may be on. It sort of highlights the imperfection of human nature, which is why that allegedly strict line of moral codes moves and deviates depending on which period of time we live in or how it suits our agenda in that moment in time.
Isn't that the quintessence of this story though, that said lines are drawn then redrawn to allow for crimes and atrocities, then bent back into shape to allow perpetrators to live life as if what they did weren't at all egregious to the majority of those around them. Makes one wonder how many just glossed over guilt and crimes that chip away at a the core of our substance - I find it hard to believe most of us wouldn't eventually break to either answer for said crimes or make someone pay for the same.
The author captures the curious almost tribal attitude of people who are part of a bigger country and yet singular to their own area. The xenophobia, discrimination and general attitude of populations pitted against each other, which then takes on yet another layer when outsiders step into the arena. It's a read between the lines, the attitudes, and the base emotion you can smell in the air. Just or unjust? Right or wrong? An intriguing read.
Buy The Murder of Anton Livius at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press; pub date 15th June 2023. Buy at Amazon com.
No comments:
Post a Comment