Friedrich Dürrenmatt has written three detective novels. None of them has that aura of philosophical profundity which surrounds his other works: plays like Der Besuch der alten Dame, for instance, or prose works like his "noch mögliche Geschichte," Die Panne. But the detective novels do have a reason for being.

In many of his works Dürrenmatt is concerned directly or indirectly with an almost obsessive idea: justice…. In each of the detective novels it is the main idea and in each one it is treated differently. To be more precise, we might say that these novels are variations on a theme.

Dürrenmatt's optimistic philosophical conclusion in Der Richter und sein Henker, Der Verdacht, and Das Versprechen is this: If man wants justice, he must pursue it, but more often than not, the certain attainment of it is something he must leave to Heaven. What...