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Rating: 
Summary: Masterpiece, no other word
Review: 1909. Strange suicide plague in Vienna. Why do all these people kill themselves, while they have no reason at all to do so? Wouldn't be something - or somebody - else? Warning to impossible crime fans: one of the so-called "suicides" is a locked room.
While he - remarkably - uses Golden Age school's apparatus, Perutz gives here a book that is wholly sui generis. It could be a mystery. It could be weird. It could be both. Mystery fans will be delighted by intricate plotting, virtuoso use of multiple solutions and a totally unexpected ending. They'll also be delighted, along with others, by magistral recreation of a vanished world, quirky atmosphere and characters, and a reflection on time, art and reality. Yet in the end, the book's real nature remains a mystery. There's only one thing to know: it's a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Best author of German tongue in the 20th century
Review: Leo Perutz is a true master of the German tongue, very powerful and strong. But he is also a great storyteller, something very rare in German literature. All of his novels are highly recommended. It is a shame they're mostly out of print. Read them, and start with this one.
Rating:
Summary: The other austrian insurance novelist
Review: This novel is an entertaining mystery (suicide or murder?), a haunting meditation on history and fate, and a playful self-referential narrative a la Borges or Calvino. In fact, Borges liked Perutz's work well enough to promote its publication in Argentina while Perutz was living in Tel Aviv and was banned from publishing in Germany. Like his coeval Kafka, Perutz also wrote fiction while working in insurance (though LP was an actuary in Vienna and Trieste, unlike FK, who worked in Prague, LP's birthplace).
Rating:
Summary: The other austrian insurance novelist
Review: This novel is an entertaining mystery (suicide or murder?), a haunting meditation on history and fate, and a playful self-referential narrative a la Borges or Calvino. In fact, Borges liked Perutz's work well enough to promote its publication in Argentina while Perutz was living in Tel Aviv and was banned from publishing in Germany. Like his coeval Kafka, Perutz also wrote fiction while working in insurance (though LP was an actuary in Vienna and Trieste, unlike FK, who worked in Prague, LP's birthplace).
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