The story is about a case solved by a fictional detective called Barlach. This was a great series.
The detective was on the verge of dying from cancer and the story was great as well.
There is also a documentary called Foreign Bodies about fictional detectives around Europe and the work of Durrenmatt was featured. AS they pointed out in the documentary, there are only two books about Barlach because he is dying of cancer.
By the magic of Amazon I find that Friedrich Durrenmatt also wrote the play "The Physicists". This play really annoyed me when I saw it in Salt Lake City. The play is about a physicists stuck in an insane asylum. It was a typical play by a humanities graduate, who doesn't understand science.
Now that I know about Inspector Barlach, I forgive Durrenmatt for writing the above play.