BERLIN: Collini goes to trial
- Book: The Collini Case
- Location: Berlin, Germany
- Author: Ferdinand von Schirach
85 year old Hans Meyer is killed in Room 500 of the Adlon Hotel (famed by Michael Jackson dangling his baby Blanket, that is to say his baby called Blanket, out of the window some years ago) by 67 year old Fabrizio Collini, shot and then stamped in the face. A brutal attack by any standards. Caspar Leinen is assigned to defend Collini, who admits the killing without any quibble. And so starts the legal process, but the stumbling block is the motive. Collini remains tight-lipped, he is not prepared to say what drove him to such a brutal murder. For Leinen there is more than just his first trial at stake, he has personal connections going right back to the Meyer family, which threaten to fudge the whole proceedings.
Essentially a novella, The Collini Case is a taut read, that comes to a resounding end. Mainly set in Berlin, it trawls back in time and describes little vignettes of life around the city and around Germany.
Much of the story revolves around a seemingly iniquitous Statute of Limitations. In January 2012 (it says at the end of the book), just a few months after the original publication of this novel in Germany, the Federal Minister of Justice appointed a committee to reappraise the situation. The book is clearly a vehicle for the author’s ambition to reform the law, and at times the balance between storyline and the drive for change can feel a little skewed.
For more about this book visit our blogpost: http://tripfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/Novel-set-in-Berlin.html
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