A Sergeant Studer Mystery

5 total works

In Matto's Realm

by Mike Mitchell and Friedrich Glauser

Published 1 January 2006

Thumbprint

by Mike Mitchell and Friedrich Glauser

Published 1 January 2004

"It's a fine example of the craft of detective writing in a period which some regard as the golden age of crime fiction."--The Sunday Telegraph

The death of a traveling salesman appears to be an open and shut case. Studer is confronted with an obvious suspect and a confession to the murder. But nothing is what it seems. Envy, hatred, and the corrosive power of money lie just beneath the surface. Studer's investigation soon splinters the glassy facade of Switzerland's tidy villages and manicured forests.

Diagnosed a schizophrenic, addicted to morphine and opium, Friedrich Glauser spent the greater part of his life in psychiatric wards, insane asylums and prison. His acute observations conjure up a world of those at the margins of society.

The Spoke

by Friedrich Glauser

Published 1 January 2009

Fever

by Friedrich Glauser

Published 2 February 2006

When two women are "accidently" killed by gas leaks, Sergeant Studer investigates the thinly disguised double murder in Bern and Basel. The trail leads to a geologist dead from a tropical fever in a Moroccan Foreign Legion post and a murky oil deal involving rapacious politicians and their henchmen. With the help of a hashish-induced dream and the common sense of his stay-at-home wife, Studer solves the multiple riddles on offer. But assigning guilt remains an elusive affair. "Fever", a European crime classic, was first published in 1936. It has been translated into four languages. This is its first publication in English and the third in the "Sergeant Studer" series published by Bitter Lemon Press.

The Chinaman

by Friedrich Glauser

Published 2 February 2007

When, in later years, Sergeant Studer told the story of the Chinaman, he also called it the story of the three places as the case unfolded in a country inn, in a poorhouse and in a horticultural college, all in Pfrundisberg, a Swiss village - three places but also two murders. Anna Hungerlott, supposedly dead of a gastric influenza, left behind handkerchiefs with traces of arsenic. And one foggy November morning, the enigmatic James Farny, nicknamed the Chinaman by Studer, was found lying on Anna's grave, murdered with a single pistol shot to the heart that did not hole his clothing. Did the fact that the poorhouse inmates had to survive on watery cabbage soup while the Warden drank vintage wines have anything to do with the murders? Perhaps. Studer must reconstitute the Chinaman's story, a voyage through asylums, reform schools and institutions for the destitute that, incidentally, were an integral part of Glauser's short life.