A whole family has been murdered with a pickaxe. They were old Danner the farmer, an overbearing patriarch, his put-upon devoutly religious wife, and their daughter Barbara Spangler, whose husband Vincenz left her after fathering her daughter, Marianne. Also murdered was the Danners' new maidservant, Marie, who was regarded as slightly simple. Despite the brutal nature of the killings and the small village where it has taken place, the police have no leads. Officially the crime is unsolved. And then a former resident returns home The Murder Farm is an unconventional detective story. The author interweaves testament from the villagers, an oblique view of the murderer, occasional third-person narrative pieces and passages of pious devotion. The narrator leaves the village unaware of the truth, only the reader is able to reach the shattering conclusion.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
With only a limited number of ways in which violent death can be investigated, crime writers have to use considerable ingenuity to bring anything fresh to the genre. Andrea Maria Schenkel has done it in her first novel, The Murder Farm - Times Literary Supplement The Murder Farm lingers on in the memory like an old tune, long after you've turned the final page - Sunday Tribune A chilling little debut number short, nasty and effective - Daily Mail 'A fascinating, refreshingly short and laudably ambitious mystery' reviewingtheevidence website.
About the Author
Andrea Maria Schenkel lives with her family near Regensburg, in Bavaria, Germany. On publication in Germany, Tannod won first place in the German Crime Prize as well as the Friedrich-Glauser Prize. The Murder Farm won the Martin Beck Award in 2008.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not for mystery lovers,
This review is from: Murder Farm (Paperback)
One has to wonder why this book (published 2006 under the title "Tannöd") became such a huge success, despite its shortness (barely novella size), its disappointing (fictional) resolution to the (historical) murder case, and its black-and-white characterization of the rural populace of Southern Germany.
"Murder Farm" initially was a small press publication. It was widely recommended by the German mystery scene as an unusual and original book. Only when it won the German Mystery Award did it attract the attention of the literary establishment that heralded it as "the great new German mystery". But mystery-wise, it's rather a disappointment. Genre readers in Germany were intrigued but never considered "Murder Farm" an outstanding book. As one critic phrased it, "It's thin, and I don't mean the number of pages."
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic portrait of rural, post-War Bavaria; a "Krimi"? Not so much.,
By AnnetteLouise (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Murder Farm (Paperback)
For whatever reason, this book has been classified as "crime fiction", or in German, a "Krimi". In fact, it won the 2007 German "Krimi" prize. Technically, it is crime fiction, in that the story involves the brutal murder of a family on an isolated farm in post-WWII Bavaria. However, it is not typical detective fiction; rather, it is an insightful portrait of a remote, rural community in southern Germany in the 1950s. I must admit that I read the book in its original German, not the English translation. It is a very short book ... only 125 pages, even shorter if you don't count the pages of interspersed prayers taken from a 1922 book "for the Christian woman", which plays tangentially into the story. I found it a fascinating and memorable book. It's written as a series of short 2-4 page chapters narrated by various characters. Some characters appear only once, others appear throughout the book, in their own and their neighbors' narratives. Many of the chapters are written as though they are transcripts of interviews taken as part of the murder investigation. The result provides insightful and often complex portraits of people, as reflected in their minds and those around them. It provides a remarkable, and not totally flattering, glimpse into an isolated, rural community in post-WWII Bavaria. Obviously I can't really judge its accuracy, but I grew up in a small rural town in Wisconsin and it rang true to me. Highly recommended.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Murder Farm (Paperback)
I thought there would be some twist in the story; some suspense. There was none.
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