The Basel Killings

It is the end of October, the city of Basel is grey and wet. It could be December. It is just after midnight when Police Inspector Peter Hunkeler, on his way home and slightly worse for wear, spots old man Hardy sitting on a bench under a street light. He wants to smoke a cigarette with him, but the usually very loquacious Hardy is silent his throat a gaping wound. Turns out he was first strangled, then his left earlobe slit, his diamond stud stolen.

The media and the police come quickly to the same conclusion: Hardy’s murder was the work of a gang of Albanian drug smugglers. But for Hunkeler that seems too obvious. Hardy’s murder has much in common with the case of Barbara Amsler, a prostitute also found killed, with an ear slit and pearl stud missing. He follows his own intuition and the trail leads him deep into an edgy world of bars and strip clubs, but also into the corrupt core of some of Basel’s political and industrial elite. More ominously, he will soon discover the consequences of certain events in recent Swiss history that those in power would prefer to keep far from the public eye.

About the Author

Hansjoerg Schneider (born 1938) lives in Basel and is the author of a number of highly acclaimed plays and the bestselling Hunkeler crime series. "The Basel Killings" was awarded The Friedrich Glauser Prize, Germany's most prestigious crime fiction prize.