Snapped

German defense attorney Ferdinand von Schirach doesn’t disappoint in Crime: Stories, a masterpiece collection of short fiction (translated by Carol Brown Janeway). Von Schirach delves deep into the minds of “criminals,” but these are not your average criminals. Instead, these are people like you and me—people so consumed by the hardships of life and circumstance that they just “snapped.” The story “Fähner” follows a simple man fed up by his wife’s daily insults. He tries the best he can to abide by the rules of marriage and stick to his commitment, but in the end it all becomes too much, and he takes the words “’til death do us part” literally when he takes an ax to his wife’s head. “Guilt,” writes von Schirach, “always presents a bit of a problem.” Brilliant and extremely captivating, Crime contains stories that invite a rethinking of one’s worldview—and they are gone too soon.