Tangled Web UK Review October 2007
The Sinner by
Petra Hammesfahr
pbk out September 07
(Bitter Lemon Press)
at £8.99
This is a translation from the German of a book by an author described as
Germany's Patricia Highsmith, the mistress of psychological thrillers.
It was at the top of that country's best-seller list for months and no doubt
is a masterly example of the genre.
Cora Bender was a young woman with a husband and child who decided
one day to kill herself and went with her family to a lakeside park, where
after a picnic and a swim, she intended to drown herself. However, when
another group came to lie on the grass nearby and the man began to roll
on his wife and kiss her to the accompaniment of a tape recorder, Cora
inexplicably seizes a knife and repeated stabs him to death. Arrested, she
almost nonchalantly admits to the crime witnessed by many people and
is taken off by the police.
In spite of her insistence on a confession, a senior detective, Rudolf
Grovian, doggedly probes her background and much of this substantial
book is taken up with her interrogation and flashbacks to her earlier life.
I found it very heavy going, even though the English translation by John
Brownjohn is excellent. As always, an English version of a foreign
language book depends heavily on the translator, but I feel that he has
done an excellent job here and any reluctance on my part to keep
ploughing on was due to my lack of enthusiasm for 'psychological'
stories, having enough 'angst' and 'schadenfreud' of my own not to need
fictional supplements. For those who enjoy the exposure of tortured
minds and the effect of a hostile early environment on developing
children, then this must be a feast, as the many plaudits from the German
'heavies' attest.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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