The Execution of Justice

Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Execution of Justice is the story of a wealthy Zurich man (Isaak Kohler) who shoots a professor in broad daylight. After Kohler is sentenced to 20 years in prison, he hires a lawyer to investigate the crime with the goal of manipulating the judicial system to obtain an acquittal. While the narrative proceeds slowly, and with several implausible plot twists, Durrenmatt's novel considers fundamental (and unsettling) questions of truth, justice, and the effectiveness of the modern legal system.