Sweetness of Life

It is Christmas in the alpine town of Furth am See and a six-year-old girl is playing ludo with her grandfather. The doorbell rings, and the old man goes to answer. The next time the girl sees him, he is lying with his skull broken, his face a red pulp against the white snow. From that time on, she does not speak a single word.

Raffael Horn, the psychiatrist engaged to treat the silent child, relu...