Friedrich Dürrenmatt is very highly regarded in Switzerland and has even had a vast underground museum constructed in his honour, designed by a bombastic, constipated famous architect, below the house in which Dürrenmatt used to live; an enormous cavern that surely has Dürrenmatt turning in his grave.

There's a great warmth to Dürrenmatt's writing, and a love of everyday Swiss life, but as a piece of crime fiction, this book really doesn't cut the mustard. Think:

Steaming plates of Swiss comfort food served in well-appointed restaurants decorated with the finest works of contemporary art; many bottles of good wine; selections of cigars; charming villages, little roads, forest glades, country people toiling in the fields, a flight to Syria aborted at the very last minute, delightful Swiss landscapes, a little girl with a red skirt (murdered for no credible reason) and a rather tall tale about a police investigator.

This little book gives us a delightful picture of Swiss country life. It's supposed to be a detective novel but ultimately, the detective fails to find the murderer of the little girl, even though he dedicates his whole life to the search and even completely changes his identity for the purpose.

As you read you're preached at for expecting the usual kind of detective novel: the kind where the murderer is finally uncovered, right at the end. And so he is. But it's all very contrived and anticlimactic.