May 2026 reading: The Chinaman by Glauser, Friedrich

Fourth Reading: The Chinaman by Friedrich Glauser

For our fourth reading, we'll be reading The Chinaman by Friedrich Glauser. The book is part of the Sergeant Studer series, featuring one of Europe’s great understated literary detectives: a patient, quietly perceptive investigator who solves crimes by understanding people rather than overpowering them.

Glauser himself led an extraordinary and turbulent life, struggling with morphine addiction and spending extended periods in Swiss insane asylums, where he wrote much of the Studer material. That outsider perspective gives the novel an unusual psychological intensity and sympathy for society’s misfits, drifters, and troubled souls.

First published on the eve of World War II, The Chinaman helped shape modern European noir. It is a short, atmospheric mystery that invites us to look beneath the surface of ordinary life — and to ask how fragile the boundary between stability and disorder really is.

We'll meet in the evening at Café Bassam in Bankers Hill, a relaxed café that serves coffee and wine and is well-suited for conversation. You're very welcome even if you didn't finish every page. Please RSVP if you plan to attend, as attendance is capped to keep the discussion intimate.