The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel

About “The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel”

The Pledge is a crime novella written by Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt, published in 1958. Dürrenmatt wrote the book after feeling that his previous movie script, Es geschah am hellichten Tag, did not have a realistic ending. The film's star, Heinz Rühmann, had pushed for Dürrenmatt to work with screenwriter Hans Jacoby, resulting in an ending typical of detective stories. Dürrenmatt criticized this genre and wrote Das Versprechen as a response. The original edition included the subtitle Requiem for the Detective Novel, though this was omitted from some later editions. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)