An intricate and intriguing novel that explores expression and creation by an artist who sees the world somewhat differently from most people. From his early childhood, where his parents were somewhat remote, Sebastian has always had an alternative view of his surroundings and he pursues this when he takes up the profession of photography, Schirach draws you into his world as Sebastián’s reputation slowly grows. But then unexpectedly he is accused of murder. At this point, the German legal system comes to the fore and the difference in the way that it operates from Britain, makes for a fascinating drama as Sebastian attempts to manipulate his defence and trial and to make it into a piece of performance art, perhaps reaching the pinnacle of his achievements.

German lawyer Ferdinand von Schirach gives us a rather gentle mystery story in The Girl Who Wasn't There. Indeed, the book is more than half over before the crime gets a mention, so it reads more like a character study of its central character, photographer Sebastian von Eschburg. Sebastian is the scion of a wealthy but loveless family, and his father committed suicide when he was still a child. He is highly idiosyncratic, uncomfortable around people, and obsessed with colour, Goya and truth. When he has an epiphany on completion of one his works, he seems to go off the rails. The story jumps a few years, and suddenly he is charged with the murder of a missing girl.

Sebastian engages gun lawyer Biegler for his defence but Biegler is nonplussed about his client's detachment and unwillingness to be straight with him. Ultimately he unravels what is going on.

von Schirach's writing style is very matter-of-fact, like journalism, which was very effective in Crime where he was recounting real-life cases. I'm not sure that it works so well here, and the book feels a bit perfunctory. As a crime novel I don't think it works, because far more emphasis is given to the lead-up and character background and not enough to the actual crime and its aftermath. The account of the investigation is not all that engaging either, and doesn't deliver any big shocks, just a gradual unfolding of what happened. It's quite bucolic in some ways. I had hoped for better after enjoying Crime so much. ( )

Roman nach wahren Begebenheiten, crude

Sebastian is an acclaimed artist whose disturbing photographic installations are feted around the world. His childhood was dysfunctional, a father who committed suicide and a mother who was distant. Sebastian was sent to boarding school and developed his own internal life to cope. At the height of his fame Sebastian is arrested and accused of murder, he confesses (possibly after waterboarding) but there is no body, then it is revealed that the victim is his own half-sister. Beigler, a famous defence lawyer, is left to put the pieces together.

This is short and completely mesmerising book. The first half is taken up by Sebastian's childhood and the events that shaped him. These are recounted in a dispassionate way, as though through a haze. There is then a huge leap to the present and the interrogation of Sebastian for an alleged murder. The evidence seems overwhelming but there is no body. The final denouement is clever and, given the subject matter, was no great surprise. I loved 'The Collini Case' which was a cold novel, this is completely different with light and shade and ambiguity. ( )

Ferdinand von Schirach is a gifted writer and a skilled storyteller whose previous works have deservedly drawn great praise and been successful worldwide. However, the reader might be forgiven for thinking he's not quite at the top of his game in The Girl Who Wasn't There, billed as a murder mystery. The first part of the novel describes the childhood and early adulthood of Sebastian von Eschberg, whose father loses the family fortune and commits suicide. His unsentimental mother sells what's left and pursues her passion for horses and riding. Sebastian, now a young man left to his own devices, develops a passion of his own for photography, gains an apprenticeship and, later, a profession. Venturing out on his own, his semi-pornographic photographs quickly attract attention, and with some fortuitous commissions and the connections they bring, he builds his passion into a lucrative career. All seems to be going well until, at roughly the novel's midpoint, a phone call to police sends investigators to Sebastian's front door. A torn dress and some blood evidence are enough to get him arrested and accused of murder. The sections of narrative that follow are mostly presented from the point of view of Sebastian's defense council, Konrad Biegler, a conscientious, driven and highly regarded lawyer. The reader might be perplexed by some of the events in the first part of the novel. In particular, the descriptions of Sebastian's sexually grotesque photographic exhibitions seem excessively and needlessly explicit. But the chapters in which we read of Biegler's investigation and Sebastian's incarceration will be cause for even more head scratching. There is a great deal of philosophizing about the nature of guilt and innocence, what they mean, whether or not anyone charged with a crime can be completely one or the other, etc. Oddly, Sebastian seems willfully reluctant to aid in his own defense and, rather than fight to prove his innocence, speaks in riddles and plays games. The ending offers an original twist, but this will elicit at most a shrug because by that point the reader has stopped caring. One of the problems is von Schirach's writing style, which piles declarative and tersely descriptive sentences one on top of the other while deftly--indeed, it seems deliberately--avoiding emotional triggers that would engage the reader at a visceral level. His hero, Sebastian von Eschberg, calamitous family history aside, is little more than an accumulation of eccentricities and instances of randomly impulsive behaviour. None of the characters is particularly likable, with the exception perhaps of Sebastian's girlfriend Sofia, though the reader will wonder what she sees in Sebastian. The story itself strains credibility and is structured in a manner that often comes across as arbitrary; sometimes it seems as if the author had no idea what was coming next and pulled something out of thin air. The Girl Who Wasn't There is, in the final analysis, an exceedingly strange novel, one that holds the reader at a distance while trying to draw us in with a mystery that generates little or no suspense. Ferdinand von Schirach can do much better than this. ( )