Safe Return Doubtful

Translated from the Danish by Paula Hostrup-Jessen

This is generally considered to be the first modern piece of crime fiction.
Published in 1829, it predates Poe’s mystery short stories by a little over a decade, and has fifty years on Sherlock Holmes.

The plot is based on an actual Danish murder from 1629. In Denmark it has been made into a movie three times, the second of which was the country’s first sound film.

I really enjoyed it, and had forgotten about the place the story has in the history of literature until after I had finished it. The plot raises a fascinating question for any fan of crime writing, one of the place of false or coerced confession, which tends to be thought of as through the application of torture, as in the Salem Witch Trials. But not in this case. From the LA Times in 2008, a veteran police detective writes.. Of the 220 wrongful convictions in the U.S. that have been overturned based on DNA evidence, nearly 25% involved a false confession or false incriminating statements, according to the Innocence Project. In each of those cases, DNA proved that the confession was false.
In true crime as much as in fiction, such an erroneous confession results in death.

It’s only a short read, 25 pages or so, and highly recommended.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5