| Publisher | Bitter Lemon Press |
|---|---|
| Date Published | 15 July 2021 |
| ISBN-10 | 1913394549 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1913394547 |
| Format | paperback |
| Pages | 256 |
| Price | £ 8.99 |
The Basel Killings
by
Making his way home on a foggy autumn night, Inspector Hunkeler finds a man he knows, dead on a bench. Popular theory attributes the crime to Albanians, but Hunkeller has other ideas.
Review
This is the first book in the Inspector Hunkeler series, first published in German in 2004. Hunkeler works in Basel, the northern Swiss city close to the border with French Alsace. Hunkeler, nearing retirement, knows his patch well, and with his girlfriend Hedwig away in Paris his evenings involve trawling the local bars where he is familiar with most of the locals.
Close to midnight on a grey, wet October evening, on his way home, he stops for a word with a man he recognises asleep on a bench. Instead of being asleep, the man is in fact dead, strangled, a diamond stud slit from his earlobe. When it is found that the victim drove a regular lorry to Albania, the police and the media jump to the conclusion that the death is related to drug smuggling from that country, a view Hunkeler does not share.
Hunkeler’s cavalier treatment of the crime scene leads to criticism from his colleagues and he is suspended from duty. Notwithstanding, he follows his nose in his own characteristic fashion and gradually narrows down the field of suspects. Eventually his superior accepts that Hunkeler he needs to be brought back as without him they are getting nowhere.
Hunkeler is an agreeable detective. Habituation to the low dives around town means he has some appreciation for the pressures the less-well-off in the community face. He enjoys their company more than that of the more respectable sectors of society, who have ready-made culprits for every problem: travellers and the latest immigrants, Albanians in particular.
Hunkeler shows a very engaging appreciation for life. He takes pleasure even in the fog-filled valleys and the damp streets of the town. He has a rural retreat across the border where he delights in bucolic attractions, including the farm animals managed by his neighbour, in a way of life apparently now in decline and unlikely to be sustained for very much longer.
Like every good policeman he also revels in the chase, the pitting of his wits against his opponent. The author sometimes sets out Hunkeler’s thinking explicitly, sometimes it is hinted at, and sometimes the reader is left to guess. There is something of Maigret about him in the way he absorbs the atmosphere and sifts for an understanding of motives.
Hunkeler is a great character, and I’m surprised it has taken so long for him to appear in English translation.
Close to midnight on a grey, wet October evening, on his way home, he stops for a word with a man he recognises asleep on a bench. Instead of being asleep, the man is in fact dead, strangled, a diamond stud slit from his earlobe. When it is found that the victim drove a regular lorry to Albania, the police and the media jump to the conclusion that the death is related to drug smuggling from that country, a view Hunkeler does not share.
Hunkeler’s cavalier treatment of the crime scene leads to criticism from his colleagues and he is suspended from duty. Notwithstanding, he follows his nose in his own characteristic fashion and gradually narrows down the field of suspects. Eventually his superior accepts that Hunkeler he needs to be brought back as without him they are getting nowhere.
Hunkeler is an agreeable detective. Habituation to the low dives around town means he has some appreciation for the pressures the less-well-off in the community face. He enjoys their company more than that of the more respectable sectors of society, who have ready-made culprits for every problem: travellers and the latest immigrants, Albanians in particular.
Hunkeler shows a very engaging appreciation for life. He takes pleasure even in the fog-filled valleys and the damp streets of the town. He has a rural retreat across the border where he delights in bucolic attractions, including the farm animals managed by his neighbour, in a way of life apparently now in decline and unlikely to be sustained for very much longer.
Like every good policeman he also revels in the chase, the pitting of his wits against his opponent. The author sometimes sets out Hunkeler’s thinking explicitly, sometimes it is hinted at, and sometimes the reader is left to guess. There is something of Maigret about him in the way he absorbs the atmosphere and sifts for an understanding of motives.
Hunkeler is a great character, and I’m surprised it has taken so long for him to appear in English translation.
Reviewed 30 September 2022 by Chris Roberts
