This volume offers bracing new translations of two precursors to the modern detective novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, whose genre-bending mysteries recall the work of Alain Robbe-Grillet and anticipate the postmodern fictions of Paul Auster and other contemporary neo-noir novelists. Both mysteries follow Inspector Barlach as he moves through worlds in which the distinction between crime and justice seems to have vanished. In The Judge and His Hangman, Barlach forgoes the arrest of a murderer in order to manipulate him into killing another, more elusive criminal. And in Suspicion, Barlach pursues a former Nazi doctor by checking into his clinic with the hope of forcing him to reveal himself. The result is two thrillers that bring existential philosophy and the detective genre into dazzling convergence.

This ebook bundle contains the first nine novels of the Inspector Green Mystery series by Barbara Fradkin. On dangerous backstreets of Ottawa, Homicide Inspector Michael Green leads complex investigations into sensational cases. When his job puts his marriage, life, and even his family in harm's way, Green's obsession with uncovering the truth leaves him grappling with the ultimate meaning of justice. "...combines a suspenseful story with plenty of opportunities to see the brook-no-nonsense inspector out of his natural element." - Booklist "A well-written page-turner." - Publisher's Weekly The Whisper of Legends - Inspector Green Mysteries #9 (NEW!) When his teenage daughter goes missing on a summer wilderness canoe trip to the Nahanni River in the Northwest Territories, Green is forced into unfamiliar territory just as dangerous as the backstreets of Ottawa. Beautiful Lie the Dead - Inspector Green Mysteries #8 When a wealthy social activist's fiancee's frozen body is found in the snow just blocks from his home, Inspector Green knows that someone is conspiring to keep the truth hidden. This Thing of Darkness - Inspector Green Mysteries #7 The brutal killing of a controversial psychiatrist on a street corner initially looks like a mugging gone wrong, but Green's investigation leaves him grappling with deeper, darker questions. Includes 6 more Inspector Green titles: Dream Chasers - Inspector Green Mysteries #6 Honour Among Men - Inspector Green Mysteries #5 Fifth Son - Inspector Green Mysteries #4 Mist Walker - Inspector Green Mysteries #3 Once Upon a Time - Inspector Green Mysteries #2 Do or Die - Inspector Green Mysteries #1

This ebook bundle contains the first ten novels of the Inspector Green Mystery series by Barbara Fradkin. On dangerous backstreets of Ottawa, Homicide Inspector Michael Green leads complex investigations into sensational cases. When his job puts his marriage, life, and even his family in harm’s way, Green’s obsession with uncovering the truth leaves him grappling with the ultimate meaning of justice. "... combines a suspenseful story with plenty of opportunities to see the brook-no-nonsense inspector out of his natural element." — Booklist "A well-written page-turner." — Publisher’s Weekly None So Blind — Inspector Green Mysteries #10 (NEW!) Twenty years after Green helped convict a young professor for the murder of an attractive coed, the man continues to protest his innocence, and shortly after being paroled, he is found dead. Suicide? Revenge? Or had Green, with blind overconfidence, failed to see the greater evil lurking in the girl’s life? The Whisper of Legends — Inspector Green Mysteries #9 When his teenage daughter goes missing on a summer wilderness canoe trip to the Nahanni River in the Northwest Territories, Green is forced into unfamiliar territory just as dangerous as the backstreets of Ottawa. Beautiful Lie the Dead — Inspector Green Mysteries #8 When a wealthy social activist’s fiancee’s frozen body is found in the snow just blocks from his home, Inspector Green knows that someone is conspiring to keep the truth hidden. This Thing of Darkness — Inspector Green Mysteries #7 The brutal killing of a controversial psychiatrist on a street corner initially looks like a mugging gone wrong, but Green’s investigation leaves him grappling with deeper, darker questions. Includes 6 more Inspector Green titles: Dream Chasers — Inspector Green Mysteries #6 Honour Among Men — Inspector Green Mysteries #5 Fifth Son — Inspector Green Mysteries #4 Mist Walker — Inspector Green Mysteries #3 Once Upon a Time — Inspector Green Mysteries #2 Do or Die — Inspector Green Mysteries #1

In Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s experimental thriller The Assignment, the wife of a psychiatrist has been raped and killed near a desert ruin in North Africa. Her husband hires a woman named F. to reconstruct the unsolved crime in a documentary film. F. is soon unwittingly thrust into a paranoid world of international espionage where everyone is watched—including the watchers. After discovering a recent photograph of the supposed murder victim happily reunited with her husband, F. becomes trapped in an apocalyptic landscape riddled with political intrigue, crimes of mistaken identity, and terrorism. F.’s labyrinthine quest for the truth is Dürrenmatt’s fictionalized warning against the dangers of a technologically advanced society that turns everyday life into one of constant scrutiny. Joel Agee’s elegant translation will introduce a fresh generation of English-speaking readers to one of European literature’s masters of language, suspense, and dystopia. “The narrative is accelerated from the start. . . . As the novella builds to its horripilating climax, we realize the extent to which all values have thereby been inverted. The Assignment is a parable of hell for an age consumed by images.”—New York Times Book Review “His most ambitious book . . . dark and devious . . . almost obsessively drawn to mankind’s most fiendish crimes.”—Chicago Tribune “A tour-de-force . . . mesmerizing.”—Village Voice

The mysterious and unbearably tense tale of a detective's obsessive pursuit of a child murderer, from one of the post-war era's greatest writers in German When a young girl is found brutally murdered in a Swiss mountain forest, the brilliant Inspector Matthai can't put the case behind him. Not even when a local felon is arrested. Not even once the suspect has confessed. Matthai promises the girl's mother that he will stop at nothing to find the real killer. Adapted into a Hollywood film, The Pledge is the chilling story of a man in desperate search of the truth. A man driven to sacrifice everything, to commit acts of cruelty and obsession in a desperate search for a killer he can't find. Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist, most famous for his plays The Visit and The Physicists, which earned him a reputation as one of the greatest playwrights in the German language. He also wrote four highly regarded crime novels - The Pledge, The Judge and His Hangman , Suspicion and The Execution of Justice, all of which will be published by Pushkin Vertigo.

The locked room mystery is one of the iconic creations of popular fiction. Michael Cook's critical study reveals how this archetypal form of the puzzle story has had a significant effect in shaping the immensely popular genre of detective fiction. The book includes analysis of texts from Poe to the present day.

Impetuous, exasperating Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green returns and unwittingly puts his daughter, a rookie patrol officer, in the line of fire. “For those who like a solid classic mystery with added character, Inspector Green is perfect.” —Globe and Mail Sidelined to administrative duties, Inspector Michael Green misses the thrill of the chase. So when his daughter Hannah, now a rookie patrol officer, responds to a 911 call about a domestic disturbance in a wealthy suburban neighbourhood, he is intrigued. Both husband and wife deny a problem and, despite Hannah’s doubts, no further police action is taken, but Green encourages her to dig deeper on her own. When the husband disappears and his car is found at the airport, the police conclude he is simply fleeing an unhappy home, a floundering law practice, and a mountain of debt. Until a body is discovered. While Green’s old friend Brian Sullivan investigates the victim’s work and family, Hannah is haunted by fear that her actions precipitated the murder. On her own time, she begins to dig into questions that linger at the periphery of the case. What has happened to the family dog, which disappeared the same night as the husband? And who is the odd, solitary young Ph.D. student who was researching ducks near the murder site? Her relentless search for answers leads her into the countryside, straight into the path of danger. And another body.