Friedrich Glauser In Matto's Realm

In Matto's Realm

Friedrich Glauser

Bitter Lemon, Jan 2005, $13.95

ISBN: 1904738060

In the late 1920's in Bern, Dr. Ernst Laduner specifically asks to see Detective Sergeant Jakob Studer, as they met in Vienna, though the cop does not remember the psychiatrist. Laduner informs Studer that a patient, Peter Pieterlen, a child murderer, escaped from the Randlingen Psychiatric Clinic; Studer concludes the psychiatrist is performing a classic CYA especially since another patient director Ulrich Borstli vanished.

Studer questions those on duty, when Borstli allegedly disappeared and Pieterlen escaped from the asylum. As he continues his investigation in the boiler room, he discovers the murdered corpse of Borstli, whose neck is broken. While his superior and the psychiatrist, claim that the murdering maniac Pieterlen, killed Borstli before fleeing the crime scene, Studer thinks otherwise. The psychological theories brought forth to accuse the missing patient as the killer, makes him wonder if someone is hiding the homicide behind a psychological theory that sounds more like mumbo jumbo.

IN MATTO'S REALM, is a dark period piece police procedural that grips the audience from the moment Studer enters the clinic, and never lets go, as the sleuth realizes those inside reflect those outside. The strong storyline is cast-driven, as the audience obtains a deep look at a 1920's German mental asylum, accompanied by the prevalent psychological theories of the day. The 'who done it' is shrewdly developed, so that readers receive a fine detective story used to provide a look at a psychiatric clinic by an insider, as author Friedrich Glauser spent time in psychiatric wards where he began his writing career.