Book Title: SPLINTERED JUSTICE, Book #4 in the Polizei Bern series with Linder and Donatelli
Character name: Giuliana Linder, a police homicide detective in Bern, Switzerland
How would you describe your childhood?
I grew up in a well-off family in Bern, the capital of Switzerland, where I still live and work. I am lucky to have parents who have always loved and respected each other and a younger brother I adore, even though I teased him a lot when he was little. My father, Max, is Swiss-German and a native of Bern, and he had a law practice where he mostly did defense work—he's retired now. My mother, Aurelia, also grew up in Bern, but her mother was originally Italian. That's why I have an Italian first name! Mom worked at a local hospital as a midwife, cutting back to a part-time job when my brother and I were small.
As a teenager, I went to lots of demonstrations; I was categorically anti-authority. My parents worried a lot about my safety, but they were old-fashioned lefties, so at least they approved of my politics. I went to law school thinking I'd work in my father's law practice and become a defense lawyer, but it didn't work out.
So what do you do for a living?
Ironically, after calling the police names at demonstrations, I became a cop. I got my law degree, just as I’d planned, and then tried working with my father for a couple of years. But we clashed a lot. I didn't always feel good about the people I was defending, either, even though I knew they deserved a defense. So I went over to the prosecution side of the law—it turned out that job made me feel even worse about what I was doing. As a prosecutor, though, I spent a lot of time with the police and realized that was where I belonged. So I started over again as a cop in a uniform. That was twenty years ago, and now I'm a homicide detective.
Being a police investigator turned out to be the right job for someone obsessed with justice, as I was then. I guess you could say I still am.
Are you married?
Yes, to a freelance journalist named Ueli Brand. He's my rock. Without his support, emotionally and practically, I couldn't have become a cop. At least, I couldn't have done police work and had children, and we wanted children. Because Ueli has a flexible schedule, he has always taken care of the kids and done most of the shopping and cooking, at the same time earning money for us with his writing. I feel grateful every day that I have him in my life. We met at twenty-one while we were both at university, but we didn't get serious about each other until four years later. At thirty, we finally decided to get married.
How old are your children?
Our daughter, Isabelle, is seventeen and has another year of high school to go. She's politically active the way both her father and I were at her age, and she's a redhead like her father. Our son, Lukas, is eleven and loves to play soccer—and talk! He has dark, curly hair and brown eyes like I do. They're both independent for their ages but affectionate, too. I think they're turning into kind, interesting people, and I know that I have Ueli to thank for that—he's the one who raised them. Sometimes I feel terrible about all the times I wasn't there for them, but I make it home for dinner most nights and usually have at least one day on the weekend with the family.
Where do you live?
We live in a ground-floor apartment with a small back garden in a neighborhood that's ten minutes from the center of Bern. My city is a wonderful place—and I'm not the only one who thinks so, since it's a World Heritage Site! It was founded in 1191 and has a medieval Old Town with cobblestoned streets, fountains, and a Gothic cathedral. Some of the buildings date back to the 1500s. The Aare River, which flows out of the Alps, loops around the medieval part of the city on its way to the Rhine. When you're in Bern, the Aare is never far away. Nor are the Alps. On a clear day, you can stand on the bridge between the Old City and our police station and see a skyline full of snow-covered mountains, some of the highest in Europe.
What do you think makes you a good police detective?
Hmm. That’s a hard question. One thing I think makes me good at my job is that I don't give up digging for facts, whether it's getting background information on the computer or interviewing a witness or a suspect. Sometimes finding out more about the people involved in a murder case clarifies who's guilty, and sometimes it just reveals more complications. But in the end, it helps me understand what happened and why. That's the way I solve a case.
Something else that helps me do my job is that over the years, I've figured out how to work with men in a way that doesn't make them dismiss me, feel threatened by me, or come on to me. That may not sound like a big deal, but Switzerland hasn't had women in power for very long. In fact, Swiss men didn't allow women to vote in federal elections until 1971! Our police department in Bern still has many more men than women, especially in positions of power. Luckily, I'm not the only woman who's a Bern homicide detective. I have an older colleague, Sabine Jost—I'm so glad she's there with me.
Do you have any enemies?
Given what I was saying about working with men, that question's more appropriate than you know. Two years ago, I had a problem with one of the prosecutors who was assigned to my cases from time to time. I told you I spent time as a prosecutor myself—that was over twenty years ago, and I was only there for nine months. Unfortunately, all those years ago, this man and I ended up on a sofa after drinking too much at an office party. The next day, I realized what a mistake that had been and made it clear—nicely, I thought—that it was never going to happen again. In any case, we were both already seeing our future spouses. But he never let me forget that very forgettable quickie and used it later to embarrass and undermine me in front of the men I work with. He even tried to pressure me into changing the focus of my investigation of an important murder case. I was furious—and worried, too—but I stood up to him. Not only that, but my colleagues on the homicide team made it clear to him that they respected me no matter what he did or said. Now he keeps his distance, and I don't think I have any enemies—unless you count the people I helped put into jail.
What keeps you awake at night?
I lie awake because I'm filled with guilt and indecision about the man I investigate cases with, an assistant detective named Renzo Donatelli. He's married with two little kids and only 36 years old, which means he's 11 years younger than me. He’s also so good-looking that he turns heads. He's intelligent and kind and makes me laugh, and he’s a great partner when we’re doing interviews. It would be bad enough if I were crushing on him from a distance, but he's the one who told me a year ago that he wanted to have an affair. In fact, we... well, we didn't let things go very far, but since then, although we still make a great team when we're on the job, there's always a lot of sexual tension between us—and in the air around us. I wonder what our colleagues think is going on. Actually, nothing's going on because I don't want to do anything to hurt Ueli and risk losing my family. But Renzo's marriage isn't as happy as mine, and I know I'm keeping him hanging on. It's not fair to him or Ueli, but I don't want to let go of the attraction between us or how happy I feel when I'm with him. I'm ashamed of how badly I'm handling this, but I can't seem to let go.
Polizei Bern #4
A Linder and Donatelli Mystery
Homicide. Suicide. Attempted murder in a Swiss cathedral . . . Fans of cops pursuing justice against the odds will love the new Linder and Donatelli book.
Sometimes, a murder stays hidden in plain sight. When it isn’t clear if a crime has been committed, how do you get justice for the victim?
Swiss homicide detective Giuliana Linder of the Bern Police and her investigating partner Renzo Donatelli are facing cases that may not be what they appear. Renzo is on the scene near the Bern cathedral when a young man repairing a medieval window is injured by falling from a scaffold—a fall deliberately caused by a teenage boy.
Finding evidence that the boy’s attack on the glassworker is linked to his mother’s suicide fifteen years earlier, Renzo decides to reexamine the woman’s death, hoping his work on the case will help get him promoted to homicide detective. He learns that the apparent suicide still haunts the injured glassworker, although he was a child of ten when the boy’s mother died.
Now that Renzo has left his wife, Giuliana knows she has to choose what she wants from their future together. Frustrated by her own case, which may or may not be a mercy killing, Giuliana can’t help getting involved in Renzo’s investigation, even against her better judgment.
Mystery Police Procedural | Thriller Crime [Seventh Street Books, On Sale: April 15, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9781645060949 / eISBN: 9781645061045]
Kim Hays has made her home in Bern since she married a Swiss. Before that, she lived in San Juan, Vancouver, and Stockholm, as well as around the United States. She has worked at a variety of jobs, from factory forewoman to director of a small nonprofit, and, in Switzerland, from university lecturer to cross-cultural trainer for several multinational firms. Kim has a BA from Harvard and a PhD from the University of California-Berkeley.
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