The Girl Who Wasn't There

Quotes

We have, in Von Schirach's ice-cool, effortlessly classy prose, an antihero accused of murder, who sees the world in too-vivid colour, and his bumptious defence lawyer, who sees everything in shades of grey. It makes for a disconcerting mix of build-up and anticlimax, tension and humour, lies and truth, and a novel as intriguingly eccentric as its protagonist Observer

Written in a beautifully understated style that matches his protagonists' detached and rather abstract view of life . . . It's an examination of the disconnection between truth and reality that is tantalising and disturbing in equal measure Guardian

Ferdinand von Schirach is one of Europe's most celebrated crime authors . . . Well worth reading . . . This is a sophisticated novel about a man whose emotional detachment is as chilly as it is destructive Sunday Times

Ferdinand von Schirach's prose is elegant and unemotional . . . gripping and the story is intriguing and often disturbing The Times

This centaur of a story, half-study of the alienated artist with a traumatic past and half-portrait of the lawyer as cantankerous philosopher of truth, may baffle or frustrate crime buffs. Other readers will enjoy its free and quizzical approach to genre expectations - and the swift, clean, enigmatic prose that Anthea Bell translates with her flawless grace Independent

This is an effective riddle of a novel. Details accumulate, tensions build and misdirection abounds, while Anthea Bell's crisp translation accentuates von Schirach's cool, pointillist prose . . . Perhaps the only secure verdict the novel delivers is that its author is one of the most distinctive voices in European fiction Daily Telegraph

A slim, elegant book, icily disturbing in Anthea Bell's translation Independent