Anatomy of a Murder

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or section needs to be revised. Details should be given on the talk page. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

Anatomy of a Murder (original title: Anatomy of a Murder ) is a crime novel by the American lawyer and writer Robert Traver . It was published in 1958 by St. Martin's Press in New York . The German translation by Curt Meyer-Clason was published in 1959 by Ullstein-Verlag , Berlin , Frankfurt am Main and Vienna , and has been used for all editions since then.

content

The novel is set in the 1950s, in a rural region in the US state of Michigan . The lawyer Paul Biegler worked for many years as an inconspicuous public prosecutor in a small district town on the Upper Lake . Then a younger, better looking competitor, Mitchell Lodwick, came along and won the next election. In addition to Biegler's injured pride and self-pity, there is now the fact that his law firm is not making any profits and his bank account has sunk to zero. Then the defense in a murder case is offered to him. The case seems clear: a first lieutenant in the American Federal Army shot a bartender in front of several witnesses and then turned himself in to an auxiliary policeman.

The perpetrator, named Frederick Manion, is correct and curt. Although the officer has no money and Biegler finds him extremely unsympathetic, following an inspiration, he takes on this case. His friend Parnell McCarthy, an old, seedy drunkard and cracked lawyer, but astute lawyer, helps him energetically. The two come to the conclusion that the only way to help Lieutenant Manion is to plead for temporary insanity during the act.

The sequence of events is as follows: Manion was temporarily assigned to a small tourist town on the Upper Lake. There he lived with his extremely pretty wife in a trailer on a campsite by the lake. To escape the dreary caravan life for a moment, Laura Manion went to the bar of a neighboring hotel one evening. The bartender there is a well-known womanizer, an excellent shooter and also a crafty bully. He can also tolerate a good amount of alcohol. When Laura Manion wants to leave the bar, he can persuade her to let him drive her home. He raped and beat her on the way. She escapes and stumbles into the arms of Manion, who heard her screams. When Laura has calmed down and taken care of Laura, he takes his pistol and goes into the bar. The bartender seems to want to take up a gun and Manion shoots him.

And so Biegler meets his rival, the new prosecutor Mitchell Lodwick, in court. This has brought the shrewd district attorney Claude Dancer to help. Since Lodwick would like to have a won case for his vita , the prosecution tries everything to cover up the rape and portray Laura Manion as a slut who deceived her husband and turned the head of the good bartender, so that the revenge of her notoriously pathologically jealous husband inevitable has been. Biegler can now build on his many years of experience as a public prosecutor. He knows all the tricks of his opponents and finally succeeds in portraying the bartender as the actually accused. The jury can be convinced that Manion was temporarily insane because of the great pain and acquitted him.

When Biegler drives to the campsite the next morning to discuss the financing of his fee, the Manions have long since left with an unknown destination. But Biegler is now known nationwide as a capable lawyer and his friend becomes a partner in the law firm.

filming