Critique of Criminal Reason: A Mystery [Hardcover]

Michael Gregorio (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 14, 2006

Most honourable Procurator Stiffeniis,
            You talents have been brought to Our attention by a gentleman of eminence, who believes that you alone are capable of resolving a situation which holds Our beloved Königsberg in a grip of terror. All Our faith and consideration are due to the notable personage who suggested your name, and that same faith and consideration now resides in you. We have no reason to doubt that you will accept this Royal Commission, and act accordingly with all haste. The fate of the city lies in your hands.
--King Frederick Wilhelm III
 

It has been years since Immanuel Kant's landmark philosophical work, Critique of Pure Reason, brought him fame throughout Europe and made him Königsberg's best-known citizen. Now, rumors have begun to surface of a new work by this aging but still acute mind. Yet unlike his earlier work, this book will not examine the mind of the average man, but the mind of the serial killer.

 

Hanno Stiffeniis, a young magistrate, has been called to Königsberg to assist in the investigation of an enigmatic string of murders. Is it part of a plot formed by Napoleon's spies to undermine the Prussian king or the work of a solitary, unknown killer? The case would seem unsolvable, were it not for the assistance and unmatched intellect of his mentor, Immanuel Kant. Together Stiffeniis and the elderly, eccentric philosopher must track down the killer who has the city of Königsberg by the throat.

Hugely atmospheric, entertaining, and intelligent, Critique of Criminal Reason marks the outstanding debut of a new name in historical fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Philosophy professor Gregorio delivers a stellar debut, a mystery set in 1804 that cunningly incorporates the ideas of the great thinker Immanuel Kant into a twisty, fast-moving whodunit plot. Wisely, the elderly Kant is not the main focus, instead serving as the cryptic mentor to a young rural Prussian magistrate, Hanno Stiffeniis, who receives a royal summons to Königsberg to take over the search for a serial killer who has spread terror in that city. The dead, found without a visible wound, are rumored to have been victims of the devil, and the supernatural aspects of the crimes only heighten the level of fear in an area of Prussia already on edge because of the expected arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte's invading army. Admirers of quality intellectual fiction should embrace this book, with its pitch-perfect period detail and psychologically complex protagonist. Hopefully, readers won't have to wait long for a sequel. Foreign rights sold in 11 countries.(Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Sherlock Holmes himself would struggle to keep up with the master sleuth Gregorio brings to life. For it is none other than Immanuel Kant--apostle of reason--who emerges from his study to combat crime in this compelling historical mystery. To be sure, the Kant of 1803 is too old to take on principal responsibility for a murder investigation, especially one involving an elusive serial killer. That daunting task falls to the narrator, one of Kant's former students: the magistrate Hanno Stiffeniis. As Stiffeniis struggles to unmask the killer terrorizing Konigsberg, he finds himself increasingly reliant upon the great philosopher. Yet he is puzzled by the way the pioneering rationalist opens the door to mysticism and even to the demonic. And as Stiffeniis struggles to unravel the recent murders, he broods over his own role in the tragic climbing death of his brother years earlier. As befits this cast of characters, Gregorio leads the reader deep into philosophical ruminations on the limits of logic and on the nature of evil--all the while spinning a plot as taut as any mystery lover could want! Only a killjoy would reveal the denouement, but readers can expect stunning--and thought-provoking--reversals before the last clue is deciphered. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1st edition (November 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312349947
• ISBN-13: 978-0312349943
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,621,170 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Murder without Reason, December 13, 2006

By 

S. Park (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Critique of Criminal Reason: A Mystery (Hardcover)

I picked up the book after learning that the book featured Immanuel Kant as a character. How would a philosopher handle a serial murder case? My expectations were especially high given the fact that Kant was a champion of logic and reason during the age of Enlightenment. Would he assist (the protagonist of the novel was set to be a student of Kant's) solving the crime case with some novel application of logic?

The book in fact focuses on matters outside of reason. To be specific, the novel roughly evolves around three themes: 1) a fictional depiction of the character Kant in his last days, 2) description of the psychological burden the protagonist Hanno Stiffeniis carries, and of course 3) the investigation of the serial murder case. Kant in the novel is fascinated by human psychology that isn't explicable with reason. Similarly for the incident that weighs heavily on Stiffeniis, he finds himself incapable of explaining why he had behaved as he did (it will be revealed in the end that it was for understandable reasons however). The attribute present in these two observations influence the unfolding of the murder case as well: resolutions are given to the reader without providing clues for the reader to work out the mysteries her/himself.

To be fair, Kant does bring rationality to the table. He endows Stiffeniis with his laboratory, which is taken in the novel as the birth of modern forensics. The laboratory was to collect evidence and to preserve parts of the victims when possible. However the introduction of the laboratory does little to imbue the novel with reason as the author strives foremost in construction of a chilling atmosphere.

Speaking of atmosphere, it is what the novel most excels in. The author recreates the times at Konigsberg in a compelling manner. The book renders Stiffeniis realistically, as a man of intelligence though at times obnoxious and compulsive. The articulate depiction of the remains of the crimes and atmosphere are in my opinion enough to give the reader chills.

All in all, the book makes for a good thriller. It is just not what one might expect from hearing its title and the name of the philosopher Immanuel Kant.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars CSI Prussia, November 29, 2006

By 

Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Critique of Criminal Reason: A Mystery (Hardcover)

"Reason does not work instinctively, but requires trial, practice, and instruction in order to gradually progress from one level of insight to another." Immanuel Kant

Michael Gregorio's first novel is set in the Baltic port city of Konigsberg, Prussia in 1804. What we think of today as a serial killer is on the loose. The city is in a state of panic and conspiracy theories ranging from a Napoleonic plot against Prussia to the work of the devil only add to the panic. A young, inexperienced Procurator (the Prussian equivalent of a magistrate) by the name of Hanno Stiffeniis, is summoned by Kaiser Frederick Wilhelm from his small town to assist in the investigation. As the name of the book suggests, Konigsberg's most famous citizen, the philosopher Immanuel Kant is behind Hanno's appointment. Hanno was once a star pupil of Kant and Kant believes that Hanno's reasoning abilities are critical to solving the crimes. What then follows is the literary birth of the science of forensic criminal investigation. Kant, aged 80 and in rapidly failing health, believes that crimes should be analyzed using what may be called a `critique of reason'. Hanno is a reluctant pupil who's instincts and sense of tradition cause him to think that time honored methods such as torture are the most expedient means to solve a crime. Yet, the bodies keep popping up and Hanno gradually learns to adopt Kant's methodology to the art of criminal investigation. Immanuel Kant once said that the use of reason is driven by three questions: "What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?" We see that process at work as the plot plays out.

This is Gregorio's first novel and some of the prose (far from all) seems a bit leaden. But ultimately, Critique of Criminal Reason was a very enjoyable book that kept my attention throughout. Gregorio's bleak portrayal of the dank, winter-storm wracked city of Konigsberg was powerful as was his merging of the last year of Kant's life into a piece of fiction. There are some similarities here to Umberto Eco's "Name of the Rose". However, the book that Critique of Criminal Reason bore the most resemblance to is Caleb Carr's "The Alienist". In the "Alienist" Carr takes us to the first uses of psychiatry as a forensic tool in solving crimes. Here Gregorio takes a look at the (fictional) birth of crime scene analysis. The Alienist was a wonderful book and Critique of Criminal Reason falls just a bit short of that mark. Nevertheless, Critique of Criminal is an excellent first novel that left me hoping his second effort will soon follow.

Recommended. L. Fleisig

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The starry sky above my head and the obscurity deep within my soul, September 27, 2007

By 

Amore Roberto "Amore Roberto" (Pinerolo -Turin- ITALY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Critique of Criminal Reason (Paperback)

Readers familiar with philosopher Immanuel Kant have already recognized in the title the allusion to the "Critique of Pure Reason", Kant's most important philosophical work.
As often, I found the book by chance in the stalls of an airport bookstore and decided to buy because it appealed both as historical novel and as a specimen of the historical-figure-turned-detective genre.
*
This is the first of a series of police/thriller stories focused on the career of procurator Hanno Stiffeniis, who is also the main character of this novel.
Set in 1804, in the turmoil of Napoleonic wars, the book is aspiring to be both a detailed picture of the period and a chronicle of the last days of the great German philosopher.
*
I won't reveal the plot, to avoid spoiling the reader's surprise.
As a reader I enjoyed the book, but must confess it is just an extremely ordinary police novel.
I just say it develops from a rephrase of a famous Kantian motto:
"Two things fill my mind with wonder: the starry sky above my head and the moral law within my soul" in which the last part has been changed in "the obscurity deep within my soul".
A variation on the theme of the Kantian "noumeno", the unknowable real essence? An improbable romantic or pre-romantic Kant? The darkness of the soul overcoming the light of the moral reason?
The reader will have the chance to judge.
The most interesting feature of the novel anyway is the description - historically correct as the writer is eager to assure - of last days of Immanuel Kant, in an implicit contrast with the most famous one of De Quincey in which Kant had been depicted as a living mummy. There's the loneliness of the man, his sense of frustration at the desertion of his most brilliant followers (Fichte) and the deep ingrained opinions of an old man...
I believe the description of early XIX century Prussia (and obviously Koenigsberg) is far weaker.
It has a strange aftertaste of a later period (say Restoration or 1830s) and a pervasive feeling of decadence. We're in the early years of the Romantic period, the waning days of the Enlightenment and that cultural milieu that we now call Ancien Regime... Napoleon's titanic personality, new ideas sweeping Europe, the last days of the Republic of Letters, of enlightened monarchs, Sturm und Drang and new Romantic ideas, ...
What we find instead is a dirty, freezing and decaying city - as sinister and oppressive as in a story of Kafka.
**
It is the fourth time I find Immanuel Kant as a fictional character.
Aside from De Quincey's "Murder considered as a Fine art" and "The Last Days of Immanuel Kant", there's also the excellent "Recordando a Lampe" by Jose Luis De Juan and the not so good Wolfram Fleischhauer's "Das Buch in dem die Welt Verschwand"
*
In the last ten years a new literary branch has sprung from the tree of the police/thriller novel. The philosophical police story is still part of the genre but with a particularly distinct spirit.
*
In what the philosophical thriller is distinct from the usual police/crime genre?
The most obvious feature is that the detective is a usually philosopher - sometimes, but more rarely, a famous writer - and moreover a historically real one: Aristotle for M.Doody, Giordano Bruno for Jacques Bonnet, Decartes for F.Serror and H.Seboga, Heidegger for J.P.Feinmann (this last not strictly thriller)....
The second feature is that these novels usually appeal to a more "sophisticated" readership, who can enjoy both the plot and references to the philosopher's ideas
In a way it can be said that with the philosophical novel the police story is coming of age: after all the Conan Doyle's Holmes is a proto-philosopher, with all his versatility in deductive logic.
The genre tries to answer the age-old question: is philosophy truly a futile intellectual pastime with no use in the real world (the answer found in Aristophanes' "Clouds")? Or can the philosophical method be a compass to explore - and eventually change - the outside world?
*
If you kept reading to these last lines, there is a chance you may be interested in other novels of the same genre I had the chance to read - and that you may have read something that could appeal to my taste (if so your suggestions will be most welcome):

ARISTOTLE
Margareth Doody - "Aristotle Detective"
By the same author and with Aristotle as main character "Poison in Athens" - "Aristotle and the Ring of Bronze" - "Aristotle and the Poetic Justice" - "Aristotle and the Mistery of Life"

GIORDANO BRUNO
Jacques Bonnet - "A l'Einseigne de l'Amitie" - Paris, 1582 philosopher Giordano Bruno is looking after a case of massacred family. I did read this novel in Italian translation: couldn't find any English edition

DESCARTES
Frederic Serror and Herio Saboga - "L'Echelle de Monsieur Descartes" (1999) I did read this novel in Italian translation: couldn't find any English translation

KANT
Thomas De Quincey - "The Last Days of Immanuel Kant"
Thomas De Quincey - "On Murder considered as Fine Art"
José Luis De Juan - "Recordando a Lampe" (2001) truly excellent and warmly recommended if you chance to find it! but unfortunately there's no English translation
Wolfram Fleischhauer - "Das Buch in dem die Welt Verschwand" (2003)- The book that changed the world (that is "The Critique of Pure Reason"). A mediocre picaresque novel...

HEIDEGGER
Jose Pablo Feinmann - "La Sombra de Heidegger" (this last not strictly a crime story)- couldn't find any English translation

And three outsiders:
Guillame Prevost - "Le Sept crimes de Rome" (2000) with an unlikely Leonardo da Vinci as main character
Estelle Mombrun - "Meurtre a Petit Plaisance" (1998) - couldn't find any English translation
Luciano Canfora - "Un mestiere Pericoloso - La vita quotidiana dei filosofi greci" (2000)- an excellent essay most unfortunately still not translated into English with some startling hypoteses: did Aritotle commission the death of Alexander the Great? Was Decartes poisoned by the Gesuits?
*
You are most welcome if you can suggest other books about the same themes or just share your ideas and comments!
Thanks for reading.