Crime - Ferdinand Von Schirach

Meet Fahner, the retired small-town doctor who resorts to the garden axe when his patience with his cruel wife runs out.Or Patrick, so entranced by the sight of his sleeping girlfriend that he cuts a small piece out of her back, just to see what she tastes like.

Or the silent assassin who calmly despatches two Neo-Nazi thugs on a railway platform.

A nameless lawyer invites us to read an extraordinary dossier of violent and unspeakable acts. All the crimes have one thing in common: the guilty are never convicted in a court of law. But however heinous the crime, the narrator shows how the human circumstances behind events can tell a different story.

Ferdinand von Schirach, himself a criminal lawyer, unveils a terrifying world where criminals elude justice, and the apparent innocents are perhaps the most dangerous of all. 'Guilt,' writes von Schirach, 'always presents a bit of a problem.' In this nuanced and telling collection, guilt is indeed never as clear cut as the crime.