The Spoke

September 22, 2008
Originally published in 1937, the fifth and final Det. Sgt. Jakob Studer mystery (after The Chinaman
) offers just enough eccentricity to support the author's reputation as the Swiss Simenon. The Bern policeman and his wife are on holiday in the town of Schwarzenstein, where their daughter is getting married, when a man, Jean Stieger, is found dead in the Hôtel zum Hirschen, stabbed with a sharpened bicycle spoke. The local police take the obvious suspect, bicycle mechanic Ernst Graf, into custody. Studer, however, isn't convinced they have their man. Then Stieger's financier boss is poisoned to death. As Studer investigates, using his own peculiar method of ratiocination, he discovers any number of suspects in what is essentially a variant on the classic locked-room murder puzzle. If the forensic methods the detective employs appear quaint to the contemporary reader, that's half the fun.

December 15, 2008
First published in 1937, the final volume in Glauser's Detective Inspector Studer series ("In Matto's Realm") finds the Swiss policeman probing the murder of a man found with a bicycle spoke sticking out of his back. Glauser's writings are a cross between Georges Simenon and Patricia Highsmith. For European crime fiction collections in academic and public libraries.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2008
In Sergeant Studers droll fifth outing, which served as the series swan song and sees its first English translation here, the Swiss police detective takes his matter-of-fact mastery of human nature and logical deduction to curmudgeonly new heights. When the waitress at the country inn where his daughter has just been marriedand where a man murdered via sharpened bicycle spoke has lately turned upbrings pre-filled drinks to the table rather than pouring them in his sight, the suspicious Studer surreptitiously swaps his glass with a tablemate and then counts his blessings when the man keels over, poisoned. Probably had it coming, the sergeant surmises, and Studers ardent followers wont doubt him for more than a few seconds. As the mystery plays out like a Thin Man romp full of frame jobs and double crosses, one might be excused for wishing Glauser had set Studer on his usual darker path, but then even a hard-driving, Brissago-chomping detective deserves a break once in a while.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)