Okay, let’s face it: I’m making The Girl Who Wasn’t There my book of the month so that some of you will read it and then we can talk about it. I’d also recommend you read Schirach’s first book, Crime, which turned some of the more bizarre criminal cases he knew as a German defence lawyer into a book and tested the limits of the number of times I could say, ‘No way!’ in a single afternoon. Schirach’s second novel opens with the life of Sebastian von Eschburg. The Eschburgs were once a prosperous family but those days have passed; now Sebastian requires a scholarship to attend the family’s traditional Swiss boarding school. In those early days, we learn that Sebastian’s mother is barely a presence in his life, while his father is his idol. Then, during one visit home for the holidays, a tragedy ruins his already delicate connection with his family and catapults Sebastian onto the treacherous path towards adulthood.

Over the years, Sebastian’s unusual perspective and disarming ideas shape him into a famous photographer and artist, one so famous that by the time he is accused of murder halfway through the book, Sebastian von Eschburg is a household name. It’s here, more than one hundred pages in, that we have to watch the man we’ve followed through life, now defending himself against a challenging case of murder, which involves a decent amount of evidence, but no body.

Those who know Sebastian tell his lawyer, Konrad Biegler, that the renowned artist can’t be a murderer, and as a reader I was as unsure as Biegler himself. The Girl Who Wasn’t There is a slim book with a whole lot of character, a whole lot of cleverness and a finale that may just make you say, ‘No way!’

Fiona Hardy