either how cleverly the perpetrator committed the crime or any lack of competence on the part of Matthäi as an investigator. In fact Dr. H. describes Matthäi as having been an investigative genius at a level unmatched even by fictional detectives. According to Dr. H. the sad story of Matthäi demonstrates that contrary to the mathematical precision usually presented in a detective novel the outcome of true police detective work finds itself far more subject to random chance, coincidence and events entirely outside the control of either the criminal or the investigator. Editions in English The Pledge London: Jonathan Cape, 1959 The Pledge New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959 The Pledge New York: New American Library, 1959 The Pledge Harmondsworth (UK): Penguin, 1964 The Pledge New York: Berkeley, 2000 The Pledge translated by Joel Agee. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006. Film adaptation The novel's version of the main story was first adapted to film in 1958, as El cebo (Es geschah am hellichten Tag), a Spanish-Swiss-German film directed by Ladislao Vajda. An Italian TV movie was made in 1979, as La promessa. A Hungarian adaptation was made by György Fehér, Szürkület (1990) Another adaptation was the Dutch movie The Cold Light of Day (1996). In 2001, it was adapted as The Pledge, starring Jack Nicholson and directed by Sean Penn. Classroom use Like Dürrenmatt's The Judge and His Hangman, this novel is widely read in schools and in many German studies courses in universities. The Pledge is also used in many literature studies, since it analyzes the context and use of symbols. References Crockett, Roger A. (1998, August 1) Understanding Friedrich Dürrenmatt, University of South Carolina Press, , 1958 novels Detective novels Swiss novels adapted into films Crime novels Swiss novellas Novels by Friedrich Dürrenmatt Jonathan Cape books Alfred A. Knopf books