Friedrich Glauser was a German-language Swiss writer. He was a morphine

Morphine

Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...

 and opium

Opium

Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...

 addict for most of his life. In his first novel Gourrama, written between 1928 and 1930, he treated his own experiences at the French Foreign Legion

French Foreign Legion

The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...

. The evening before his wedding day, he suffered a stroke

Stroke

A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...

 caused by cerebral infarction

Cerebral infarction

A cerebral infarction is the ischemic kind of stroke due to a disturbance in the blood vessels supplying blood to the brain. It can be atherothrombotic or embolic. Stroke caused by cerebral infarction should be distinguished from two other kinds of stroke: cerebral hemorrhage and subarachnoid...

, and died two days later.

One of Germany's best-known crime writing awards is the Glauser prize.

Stories

The Sergeant Studer detective novels are set in the Switzerland and Europe of the 1930s, and make frequent reference to then-recent European history, such as the Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

 hyperinflation and the banking scams and scandals that flourished during that period. Today's readers may be surprised at how little attention (none, in fact) is paid to a particular then-new politician in Germany.

The novels were originally written in Swiss-dialect German. The translations by Bitter Lemon Press make note of changes between dialects.

Jakob Studer is a sergeant in the constabulary of the Canton

Canton

- Administrative divisions :* Canton , territorial/administrative subdivision in some countries, notably Switzerland* Township , known as canton in Canadian French- China :...

 of Bern. He is old for his rank, having had to start over again in a new police force after being fired from his original force. The firing is mentioned in each novel as being politically motivated, because Studer refused to back down from a proper investigation of a banking scandal wherein he eventually caught the real criminals, well-connected top people in the banking industry, rather than making do with a few minor players. Other minor characters, notably his cheerful wife and a local attorney with whom Studer plays billiards, play small roles within the books, sometimes helping to solve the mysteries.

The Spoke opens at the wedding between Sgt. Jakob Studer's daughter and a young police constable, held at a small hotel run by an old schoolmate of Studer. Before the evening is over, another hotel guest (not a member of the wedding party) has been murdered. The unusual weapon chosen, a sharpened bicycle spoke, leads Studer and the local police to suspect the town's bicycle repairman, a gentle but mentally slow man who was severely abused during childhood.

Fever is set roughly a year after The Spoke. Sgt. Studer's daughter has just given birth to a baby boy, and Studer, on assignment in Paris, receives the news from his wife, who has gone to help the young couple with their first child. Studer goes out for celebratory drinks with several of the French gendarmerie with whom he has been working. At the pub, a rather strange White Father

White Fathers

The missionary society known as "White Fathers" , after their dress, is a Roman Catholic Society of Apostolic Life founded in 1868 by the first Archbishop of Algiers, later Cardinal Lavigerie, as the Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa of Algeria, and is also now known as the Society of the...

 joins the group and tells a story of a "clairvoyant corporal" in a French Foreign Legion

French Foreign Legion

The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...

battalion to which the priest has been assigned who has "predicted" the murder of two Swiss women. Upon his return to Switzerland, Studer learns of the two women's deaths and begins an investigation that will take him back through France to Algeria to find the killer.

The Chinaman does not contain any clues as to where it fits within the timeline of the other stories. On July 18th (year unspecified), Studer meets an elderly retiree who has returned to the small village where he was born, near Bern, after decades spent working in various parts of Asia. The retiree tells Studer that he is sure he will be murdered very soon. Four months later, on November 18th, the retiree's prediction comes true, shortly after a seemingly unrelated, seemingly natural death. After a cooperating witness is murdered, Studer must race to find the murderer before more people are killed.