Translated by Astrid Freuler — We’ve been reviewing Hansjörg Schneider’s entertaining stories about the frustrations of Peter Hunkeler, an aging and cynical detective (now retired) of the police force of Basel, Switzerland, ever since The Basel Killings was translated into English in 2021.
Basel is located so close to Germany and France that Hunkeler has a second home in Alsace, and the area is almost another character in the stories. Schneider beautifully evokes not just the local scenery, but the mental images the residents have of themselves.
Basel is not as sophisticated as Switzerland’s larger, wealthier financial hub Zurich or as prominent worldwide as cosmopolitan Geneva. Basel is, as it happens larger than the country’s capital, Bern, but cannot compete in national prominence. It carries on quietly at its own pace, investing in cultural institutions and taking pride in its pharmaceutical industry.
Despite their geographic proximity, sharp differences in outlook (as well as old antagonisms) can be experienced in these three neighbouring countries. You get an amusing display of it when an investigation brings together police officials from all three, which Hunkeler is invited to attend. The meeting is run by his successor, Detective Madörin, who resents Hunkeler mightily. Alas, it’s a disaster, confirming the impression that Madörin, and possibly Basel itself, is yet again an also-ran.
When he was a university student in the 1960s, Hunkeler took an interest, if not an active part, in left-wing politics, long since set aside. Yet today when he’s hospitalised for exploratory surgery he finds himself sharing a room with a voluble old man, Dr Stephan Fankhauser, whom Hunkeler recognises as Red Steff, one of the biggest troublemakers in the student movement. Now, however, the old firebrand is terminally ill.
Fankhauser must have subsequently reformed, because he’s been serving as director of the Basel Volksbank – as Hunkeler says, bourgeois through and through. Whatever, the man won’t stop talking, and he’s driving Hunkeler crazy. Fortunately, the night nurse is generous with sleeping pills. One night, half asleep but perhaps not yet dreaming, he sees a different nurse come into their room and give Fankhauser an injection in his belly that he seems to fight. In the morning, he’s dead. As a retiree, Hunkeler of course has no standing to investigate, but his years of police work won’t let him set the episode aside.
His patient girlfriend Hedwig takes him to his place in Alsace as soon as she can and, as he’s recuperating, an unexpected guest turns up: his granddaughter Estelle, whom he’s never met. She can’t stand living at home at the moment and believes Hunkeler will be a more supportive adult than her parents currently are. Always on the phone, always up to something, she baffles Hunkeler.
If books can be divided into two camps – the tortoise and the hare, with the hare dashing from one action scene and disaster to the next – this story is definitely a tortoise. The book delves into the minutia of Hunkeler’s life, and while you’re waiting for something to happen, it all becomes quite soothing. You read about the book he’s reading on World War I, and it reminds you that the fields of battle were not so very far from this place where countries rub up against each other, borders are only political, and memories are long. In truth, a lot of Hunkeler’s meandering is unexpectedly significant, and while you may think he’s not doing much, he accomplishes quite a bit.
Two other violent episodes occur that are, could be, maybe linked. A former Liberal party head is mugged outside his home and taken to hospital, and another man is shot near the woods with his own hunting gun. Hunkeler, who is kept informed of these investigations by a former colleague, thinks Madörin has the wrong end of the stick in each case. But, as a retired detective, what can he actually do? Plenty.
It took a while to warm up to this story, as I found Fankhauser just as tedious as Hunkeler did, but once I got into it, the methodical recounting of his days and his way of working were most satisfying.
Also see our guide to Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series.
Bitter Lemon Press
Print/Kindle
£7.99
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
