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Der Fall Collini (2011)

by Ferdinand von Schirach(Favorite Author)

3.75 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

3492054757 (ISBN13: 9783492054751)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Piper

review 1: Baldur von Schirach was one of the top officials in Nazi Germany; he was the leader of the Hitler-Jugend (Hitler Youth) organization. Convicted for crimes against humanity in 1946, he spent 20 years in Spandau prison in Berlin. Ferdinand von Schirach, a lawyer and a writer, whose books have been translated into more than 35 languages, is his grandson. "The Collini Case" (2011) is a good courtroom drama. I find it better than many of John Grisham's novels.Fabrizio Collini, an elderly man, a toolmaker posing as a Corriere della Serra reporter, visits an 85-year old rich industrialist, Herr Meyer, in a hotel in Berlin. He kills him, and defaces the body ("He couldn't stop, he kept grinding his heel into that face while blood and brain matter spurted over his trouser leg, the ... morecarpet, the bedstead.") Then he calls the police, sits down in the lobby, and waits for the law to come. Caspar Leinen, a young attorney on standby duty for legal aid (something like the public defender office in U.S.) picks up the case, against a famous and very experienced prosecution attorney.I find the plot interesting and "The Collini Case" is a hard book to put down. The denouement is plausible and consistent with the setup. The author, being a criminal law practitioner, obviously knows about the court process in his country. I also like the writing; the sentences are mostly short and simple, yet they well convey the visuals (the translator must have contributed to the overall quality). The best thing of all is that the novel is only 186 pages long. No fluff, no padding, no extraneous stuff that many American writers so love to use to increase the volume. Way to go!Three and a half stars.
review 2: 'The Collini Case' by Ferdinand von Schirach is not quite what it seems. The precis of the plot on the back cover of the paperback edition that I have just read gives the impression that we are in John Grisham territory and that the story is a legal thriller. In fact, it's worlds away from any of Grisham's books. 'The Collini Case' is a philosophical tale that poses the question: to what extent can someone continue to be regarded as morally and legally responsible for any crimes and misdeeds that they committed ages ago? The law in many countries (though not where I live: in the UK) is framed in such a way that liability for all crimes, even the most heinous ones, can at some point be permitted to expire. This principle, known as the statute of limitations, forms a crucial part of events in 'The Collini Case'. The story takes place in Berlin in the early 2000s. It begins when Fabrizio Collini, an Italian citizen, walks into a hotel and viciously murders the man he has arranged to meet there, Hans Meyer. Meyer is a wealthy industrialist. The case against Collini appears to be a straightforward one. A young, inexperienced lawyer, Caspar Leinen, is assigned to Collini's defence. Leinen struggles initially to formulate a reasonable case for his client because the evidence of his guilt seems to be overwhelming and because Collini refuses to say anything about what has happened. Matters become even more problematical for Leinen when he realises that the victim was someone he once knew very well. Meyer was the grandfather of Leiten's best friend while at school, Philipp. Leiten used to spend most of his school holidays with Philipp at the Meyer family's country estate. In an attempt to mount a viable defence for his client, Leiten becomes increasingly desperate to uncover the motive for the crime which, perhaps not surprisingly, lies buried in the aftermath of the collapse of the National Socialists' rule decades earlier. Translated into English from the original German (by Anthea Bell), 'The Collini Case' is an intelligent, perceptive and important story. It's by no means a long novel. It has 191 pages, but the number of words per page is well below the average for novels of its kind. Written in a dry, lean style, it does not grip the reader in the way that many popular thrillers do (although the courtroom scenes are very entertaining). It is nonetheless a riveting and very enjoyable read. The characterisation is excellent. And the reader is keen to know why Collini did what he did. A note at the end of the story makes it clear that the legal principles that feature in the novel resulted in the establishment by the German Justice Ministry of a committee to examine the impact of the Nazi past on current German jurisprudence. So, 'The Collini Case' can claim to be an influential as well as an entertaining novel. It's well worth reading. 8/10. less

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