Ferdinand von Schirach’s latest German hit, The Girl Who Wasn’t There, is an enigmatic, absorbing little book. The author, a defence lawyer, is best known here for The Collini Case , the story of a young lawyer representing a man who admits a brutal murder but won’t say why he did it. Clever and disturbing, opening horrifically as Von Schirach’s murderer stamps on his victim’s head until the heel of his shoe comes off, The Collini Case was a huge bestseller in Germany and climbed the charts here too.
The Girl Who Wasn’t There is a slower burn. The first half tells of the childhood of Sebastian von Eschburg, growing up neglected on his crumbling family estate, eight before he is allowed to eat with his parents, transfixed by his father’s gutting of a deer on a hunt.
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