Studer investigates when the director vanishes and a child murderer escapes from an insane asylum in Bern, an environment Glauser knew well from personal experience. Set in the 1920s, the novel explores the blurred line that separates madness from reason. Dubious psychological theories and therapies abound and the asylum darkly mirrors the world outside. ||A fine example of the craft of detective writing in a period which fans will regard as the golden age of crime fiction.|| - The Sunday Telegraph