The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach

Translated from German by Anthea Bell

Penguin Books, 208 pages, $16 (c2011)

The Collini Case is a small book (208 pages) by today’s standards, but it packs a wallop. Economically but thoroughly presented, German defense attorney and author Ferdinand von Schirach has written a courtroom drama that is intelligent and surprising.

Fabrizio Collini is an Italian who has lived and worked in Berlin for decades. What would suddenly drive him to murder a prosperous businessman whom he had never met? Not just murder him, but deliver death blow after death blow. The victim was completely and thoroughly dead.

Caspar Leinen is a brand-new defense attorney. He was smart enough and impressive enough that he could have become a high-paying corporate business suit or an organization man, but he struck out on his own, to make his own way in the legal world. The very first case he is handed is to defend Collini. The question isn’t how can he get Collini off, but is there anything that could mitigate the charge against him?

Leinen is frustrated because his client will not talk to him, other than to say that he did indeed murder Jean-Baptiste Meyer. The motive remains a mystery.

Then a voice out of Leinen’s past calls him. It is a past love, Johanna, the sister of his best friend, who died tragically with his and Johanna’s parents. Leinen also had close ties with Johanna’s grandfather, Hans Meyer. Guess what! “Hans” was a nickname. The victim in Leinen’s first case is the man who was like a grandfather to him. Jean-Baptiste is Hans.

Ethically, morally, Leinen is in a quandary. What pulls him forward before making his fateful decision is a need to know what drove Collini to murder Meyer. Collini has impressed Leinen as a quiet giant, a polite, obedient man. Why, why, why?

Von Schirach’s narrative is spare, but he hits all the notes that will compel you to turn page after page after page. His resolution will take your breath away. (And don’t forget to read the historical note he has added at the end.) The Collini Case is a great, meticulously crafted courtroom drama, as well as a very touching novel about what it means to be part of a family.

Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell

Mulholland Books, 384 pages, $16  (paperback release date - 6/10/14)

When Thomas (“Confessions of an Opium Eater”) De Quincey is not jonesing for a laudanum dose, he obviously is well-suited for catching killers using his own form of profiling and by rifling the messy closets of the subconscious. So David Morrell posits in Murder as a Fine Art.

In 1811, multiple killings shocked London. They were subsequently dubbed The Ratcliffe Highway Murders. That part is true. The made-up part happens in 1854, when more murders occur, patterned eerily after the murders years ago. Because De Quincey had written about the previous murders in an essay entitled, “Murder as a Fine Art” (another fact), he becomes involved in the current murders. Initially De Quincey is the prime suspect of Inspector Ryan and Constable Becker because of his detailed knowledge of the original murders, replicated in detail by the current killer. De Quincey and his daughter, Emily, eventually become allies of the police.

For most people De Quincey is probably known, if at all, only for having written a book about the effect opium had on him. People erroneously assume that he praises the drug for its ability to grant him clarity of thought. In Murder as a Fine Art, De Quincey, still in the throes of his addiction, takes great pains to explain to all that he meant the book also as a means of deterring others from following in his footsteps. In De Quincey’s time, opium was not illegal and its derivative, laudanum, could freely be found.

Morrell has created the page-turning story of the search for a mass murderer, a madman, a chameleon, in the dirty, teeming streets of London. He has given De Quincey depth and gravitas as a backdoor psychologist who can understand what might be driving the murderer. In a creative way, Morrell’s third-person narration reads alternately like a history presentation and a set of you-are-there scenes.

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Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan

Berkley Trade, 352 pages, $15, c2009

There must be a word for it but I just can’t think what it is: when writers write about writers, when movie makers make movies about movie makers, when journalists journal about journalists, when the media discusses the media. Self-what? It shouldn’t be a benign term, like self-reflection. It shouldn’t be harsh, on the other hand, like self-aggrandizement.

Anyhow.

Harry Dolan, a former editor, has written a book about an editor. Dolan’s crime fiction is about an editor who works with crime fiction. It’s like a halving of the axiom that a writer must write what he knows. That most popularly means that a writer, who theoretically enjoys writing, writes about something other than writing that he or she knows. In Dolan’s case, he has written a quirky, attractive, winking look at the business of crime fiction.

I could hear the sounds of noir writer David Goodis as I read the first few pages. The focus of attention is the enigmatic David Loogan. Dolan almost immediately declares that Loogan is not his real name. It is not apparent what Loogan’s thoughts are, why he acts the way he does, and what his deal is. He’s the enigma in the puzzle, the wheel within a wheel. Is he the good guy or the bad? Why is it so important to know which? Here’s either a hint or an obfuscation: Loogan begins the story by buying a shovel with which to bury a murder victim.

Whoever Loogan really is, right now he is an editor for a crime fiction magazine. The magazine publishes short stories by both unknowns and famous people. The famous people are really famous and some of them help the editor, Tom Kristoll, with the running of the magazine, Gray Streets. Tom’s wife, Laura, is a professor of literature, and he hires interns — mostly Laura’s students — to help at the magazine.

It’s not clear whether Loogan was a writer in his former life, but he tries his hand at a crime short story, and soon he is working for the publication as an editor. Soon, too, there are three dead people, and Loogan is a suspect. Chasing him is Ann Arbor, Michigan, police detective Elizabeth Waishkey, who seems more beguiled by Loogan at the start than seems wise. Waishkey, fortunately, proves to have a logical brain and a dry sense of humor, and it was fun to watch her operate.

Dolan is obviously a big fan of crime fiction. He quotes Chandler, winks at real famous authors with his fictional famous authors, and gives a high-five to noir fiction. As Waishkey often says to Loogan, “You think you’re in a story in Gray Streets.” Wouldn’t it have been ironically fine if Dolan had titled his book, Grey Streets? No, maybe that’s overkill, and killing is best left to murderers.

Dolan gets the award for best selection of odd character surnames: Loogan, Waishkey, Kristoll, Hideaway, Shellcross, Hifflyn, Tully, Shan, Beccanti.