"Despairing plot about the reality of madness and life, leavened with
strong doses of bittersweet irony. The idiosyncratic investigation and
its laconic detective haven't aged one iota."--Guardian
A child-murderer escapes from a Swiss insane asylum. The stakes get
higher when Detective Sergeant Studer discovers the director's body,
neck broken, in the boiler room of the madhouse. The intuitive Studer is
drawn into the workings of an institution that darkly mirrors the world
outside. Even he cannot escape the pull of the no man's land between
reason and madness where Matto, the spirit of insanity, reigns.
Addicted to morphine, Friedrich Glauser spent much of his life in
psychiatric wards and prison. He began writing mystery novels while an
asylum inmate in 1935.