Ferdinand von Schirach’s debut collection of short stories is based on some of his most memorable cases as a criminal defence lawyer in Berlin. A reticent doctor calmly dismembers his wife after silently enduring her cruelty for 40 years. A man waiting on a train platform beats two aggressive neo-Nazi thugs to death in the flash of an eye, before returning to his bench, lighting a cigarette and waiting patiently for his arrest. A talented musician drowns her dearly loved brother in the bathtub after a horrific accident which leaves him scarred and amnesic. In each instance, von Schirach methodically gathers the details of the case, giving pause in the aftermath of the trial to contemplate the limitations of the criminal justice system and the complexities of determining punishment for perpetrators who are often either naive or deeply traumatised.

Like the best practitioners of his field, von Schirach is meticulous when relating the lives of his clients, while respecting their confidences where necessary, evoking sympathy for his subjects without frustrating the reader with an excess of professional brevity. Von Schirach does not presume to speak for the psychology of the criminal acts he defends, and he studiously avoids casting judgement; the allure of the dozen cases he describes lies in the gap between the gentle portraits of his defendants and the bizarre, idiotic or abhorrent acts of which they are accused. Representing with equal vigour a leading industrialist and an illegal immigrant forced into prostitution, von Schirach presents a fascinating cross-section of German society, entertainingly told against the backdrop of his light-hearted encounters with other members of the profession and the quirks of the continental legal system.

Already a bestseller in Germany, Crime is currently being adapted into a film, and another collection based on the author’s Der Spiegel columns will be released later in the year.