This is a cold-eyed study of a gruesome murder. In a scenario very reminiscent of Capote's In Cold Blood, an entire family are found dead on their remote farm, along with the maid. Due to the remoteness of both the far and its inhabitants, many days pass before neighbours look in and make the grisly discovery. There are no clues and no suspects.

The novel proceeds as a mix of eyewitness narration and the record of conversations held with villagers connected with the crime; ostensibly by a former local returning to satisfy their curiosity. The plot is inexorable and contains few twists; the point of this story is more to gradually reveal the characters involved, and the motives that led to the deed. ( )

I'm always on the look-out for German crime novels translated into English and was thrilled to find The Murder Farm on Edelweiss.

This is Schenkel's first novel. It was a best-seller in Germany, selling over 300,000 copies, and was also made into a movie directed by Bettina Oberli.

Murder Farm is based on a real-life 1922 murder of a family on their farm in Bavaria, Germany. Schenkel moves the crime to the post-WWII time period, which creates more tension for contemporary readers.

This is one of those novels that is a choppy mosaic of scenes rather than a smooth, consistent narrative, so its not your typical mystery novel and may not appeal to those who want to lose themselves in a story.

You get bits and pieces of the various characters' personalities--from their own thoughts to what other characters think of them coupled with bits of local history and rumor. Prejudices, egos, delusions, and social taboos mess with the reader's ability to get a clear sense of not only who the characters are, but who the murderer might be.

I tend to prefer a straightforward narrative story when it comes to crime novels, but I enjoyed the way Schenkel and her translator (Anthea Bell) create vivid atmospheres and a strong sense of personality with so few words. I'll keep my eye out for more of Schenkel's books coming out in English.

Of course you can't help but think of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood when reading this novel. ( )

Fictional Version of a True Unsolved
Review of the Quercus hardcover edition (2014) translated from the German language original "Tannöd" (2006)

The Hinterkaifeck Murders are a true unsolved cold case from 1922 at a farm nearby to Munich, Germany. Schenkel takes the known facts of the case and transposes them into a post-World War II time and changes names in order to fictionalize the circumstances.

The book proceeds as if the anonymous writer was interviewing various neighbours, witnesses and public figures in the area. There are interludes where we read the inner thoughts of certain characters which are not revealed to the fictional writer, but the reader will be able to deduce who they are eventually. There is a well done twist that comes along with that.

Although the basic facts of the case were a fait accompli that was given to her, Schenkel does use an inventive style here to get that material across and to develop a solution based on those facts (not that it would have been the same solution back in 1922).

Schenkel won the Deutscher Krimi Preis (German Crime Prize) for this book and for her following book Kalteis (Ice Cold) (2007).

As best as I can remember, I added The Murder Farm to my TBR list back in 2014 based on this New York Times article Best Selling German Crime Novel Breaks Into American Market. One of my reading targets for 2021 is to make a serious dent in my TBR.

Trivia and Link
The original German Tannöd was adapted into a feature film version Tannöd (2009) dir. Bettina Oberli. The film was also retitled The Murder Farm for its later English language subtitled release.

The original German title "Tannöd", which is the name of the fictional farm, does not translate into English. But Google Translate says that it is a Swedish word that means Toothache. ( )

At last a modern novel that is not over 400 pages. This is very short, quite moving and invites the reader to read it in a couple of short sittings. (I read the swedish translation, Mordbyn.) ( )