Benedikt Höller

Some people notice bloodstains. Benedikt Höller first notices who put the coffee in the wrong place. Fifty-eight, a major with the Salzburg criminal police, from the mountains, with sentences so short each word seems to charge rent.

Down-to-earth, watchful. He reads people and crime scenes in the details others miss. When he speaks, it usually lands. Under stress and after a glass, the Salzburg dialect slips through. Otherwise he asks rather than judges. Judging, he leaves to other people.

His Kaiserschmarrn notes sound like him: brief, practical, with a margin remark that leaves more open than it says.