The Judge and His Hangman

On 3 November 1948, a body is found inside a Mercedes by the roadside near a quiet Swiss village. The victim is a police officer, Ulrich Schmied. The investigation is entrusted to the ageing Chief Inspector Bärlach and the young, ambitious Officer Tschanz. At first, the novel appears to follow the rules of classic detective fiction: a mysterious murder and a thrilling investigation. But in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s hands, the story cuts deeper, with philosophical overtones. The real tension lies in the clash between Bärlach and the wealthy Gastmann, who is soon identified as the prime suspect. They stand at opposite moral extremes. Gastmann is a dyed-in-the-wool nihilist, unbound by conscience. Bärlach, on the other hand, is driven by an unyielding faith in justice at any cost, hardened by a confrontation with Gastmann many years earlier. Their duel becomes more than a criminal case. It turns into a meditation on justice itself—on its limits, its inability to reach the absolute truth, and the passions that can corrupt even the pursuit of what seems right. Dürrenmatt’s prose is spare and precise. It strikes cleanly. It unsettles. It leaves the reader facing the fractures in their own moral ground.

The Judge and His Hangman
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Adelphi, 2015 (original edition, 1952)