''Mesmerising and utterly absorbing'' New York Times

''A magnificent storyteller'' Der Spiegel

A retired small-town doctor takes a garden axe to his cruel wife.

A woman laces her brother''s food with barbiturates.

Two men steal a priceless Japanese tea bowl with brutal consequences.

What drives a person to commit a crime?

Our narrator knows that behind every misdeed is a story waiting to be told. In this collection of chilling cases, a nameless lawyer recounts the love, obsession, selfishness and despair that influenced his clients'' irrevocable choices.

Drawn from Ferdinand von Schirach''s eminent career as a criminal defence lawyer, Crime blends fiction with real life, each story a revealing, unsettling insight into what may compel a person to act beyond the law.