Translation from German of: Tannöd.

"Originally published in Germany as Tannöd by Edition Nautilus in 2006"-- Title page verso.

"A whole family has been brutally murdered with a pickaxe at their remote farm home, now dubbed "The Murder Farm". The newspapers are full of stories and rumors about the sensational case, but the police have no firm leads an little sense of how to find the killer. The reader learns about the case when a former resident of the village returns home to collect evidence and attempt a solution to the case. Written as a collage of first-person recollections and third-person narrative, and based on the true story of an unsolved rural murder that took place in 1922 in Bavaria, [the author's] internationally bestselling, award-winning debut has been compared to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. It is an unforgettable detective story in which police, journalists, and narrator alike are confounded until the novel's shattering conclusion."-- From dust jacket flap.