THE JUDGE AND HIS HANGMAN AND

This volume offers bracing new translations of two precursors to the modern dete
ctive novel by Friedrich Durrenmatt, whose genre-bending mysteries recall the wo
rk of Alain Robbe-Grillet and anticipate the postmodern fictions of Paul Auster
and other contemporary neo-noir novelists. Both mysteries follow Inspector Barla
ch as he moves through worlds in which the distinction between crime and justice
seems to have vanished. In "The Judge and His Hangman," Barlach forgoes the arr
est of a murderer in order to manipulate him into killing another, more elusive
criminal. And in "Suspicion," Barlach pursues a former Nazi doctor by checking i
nto his clinic with the hope of forcing him to reveal himself. The result is two
thrillers that bring existential philosophy and the detective genre into dazzli
ng convergence.