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Crime (2009) · Ferdinand von Schirach · Criminal defence lawyer, Berlin
Short cases. Complete worlds.
Von Schirach writes from inside the legal structure — as a defence lawyer he knows what the court looks at and what it doesn't. Each case is a standalone — a single scenario examined until the law and the person in it stop making easy sense together.
The book doesn't argue for defendants. It renders them. The difference matters: argument makes a point, rendering makes a person. By the end of each story the category of guilt has become more complicated than it was at the start.
No sensationalism. The prose is clean and deliberately procedural — and then, inside the procedure, something human. That tension is the whole book.