Regardless of the quality of his writing, and it seems as good as most detective stories, (in which you are swept along with external action so swiftly that you cannot really evaluate the trip) , We nominate him for the worst cat metaphor on the planet:
..."Rosi two more beers."
"Yes Herr Ellenberger". The red-haired waitress did not withdraw her hand when he patted it. She looked like a cat who wanted to purr but was looking for a spot where she could do it in peace....
No cat ever.... That metaphor is so heavy handed it fell off the counter.
The line occurs in Thumbprint, (English translation 2004, which appears to be the earliest one). Maybe you don't like my review. Here's another:
Thumbprint ...[was] first published in a 1930s periodical ...[It's author] was addicted to opium and its derivatives. He wrote this book while in Waldau asylum, and died in 1938 on the eve of his wedding. He has left to us his dour policeman, Sergeant Studer, who is trying to work out if the person whom he cuts down and saves, having chanced upon him dangling in a prison cell, is as obviously guilty of the murder of a travelling salesman as he seems to be. And so the story develops. But the principal character here, indeed the culprit, seems to be small town Switzerland and the generally inward looking Swiss themselves. Sergeant Studer’s attempts to get around the natives’ mistrustful connivance in the matter of a murder keeps us turning the pages.
..."Rosi two more beers."
"Yes Herr Ellenberger". The red-haired waitress did not withdraw her hand when he patted it. She looked like a cat who wanted to purr but was looking for a spot where she could do it in peace....
No cat ever.... That metaphor is so heavy handed it fell off the counter.
The line occurs in Thumbprint, (English translation 2004, which appears to be the earliest one). Maybe you don't like my review. Here's another:
Thumbprint ...[was] first published in a 1930s periodical ...[It's author] was addicted to opium and its derivatives. He wrote this book while in Waldau asylum, and died in 1938 on the eve of his wedding. He has left to us his dour policeman, Sergeant Studer, who is trying to work out if the person whom he cuts down and saves, having chanced upon him dangling in a prison cell, is as obviously guilty of the murder of a travelling salesman as he seems to be. And so the story develops. But the principal character here, indeed the culprit, seems to be small town Switzerland and the generally inward looking Swiss themselves. Sergeant Studer’s attempts to get around the natives’ mistrustful connivance in the matter of a murder keeps us turning the pages.
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