Splintered Justice: A Linder and Donatelli Mystery

Homicide. Suicide. Attempted murder in a Swiss cathedral . . . Fans of cops pursuing justice against the odds will love the new Linder and Donatelli book.

Sometimes, a murder stays hidden in plain sight. When it isn’t clear if a crime has been committed, how do you get justice for the victim?

Swiss homicide detective Giuliana Linder of the Bern Police and her investigating partner Renzo Donatelli are facing cases that may not be what they appear. Renzo is on the scene near the Bern cathedral when a young man repairing a medieval window is injured by falling from a scaffold--a fall deliberately caused by a teenage boy.

Finding evidence that the boy’s attack on the glassworker is linked to his mother’s suicide fifteen years earlier, Renzo decides to reexamine the woman’s death, hoping his work on the case will help get him promoted to homicide detective. He learns that the apparent suicide still haunts the injured glassworker, although he was a child of ten when the boy’s mother died.

Now that Renzo has left his wife, Giuliana knows she has to choose what she wants from their future together. Frustrated by her own case, which may or may not be a mercy killing, Giuliana can’t help getting involved in Renzo’s investigation, even against her better judgment.

Kim Hays is an American who moved to Bern thirty-five years ago when she married a Swiss; by then, she’d already lived in the US, San Juan, Vancouver, and Stockholm. She studied at Harvard and Berkeley, and before beginning the Polizei Bern series, she worked in a number of jobs, including executive director of a small nonprofit and lecturer in sociology. A Fondness for Truth is her third police procedural featuring Swiss detectives Linder and Donatelli. The first, Pesticide (2022), was shortlisted for a CWA Debut Dagger Award and a 2023 Silver Falchion Award for Best Mystery. Kirkus called the second mystery, Sons and Brothers (2023), ＂a smart Swiss procedural that keeps its mystery ticking.＂