The Pledge (1959)

A detective promises a murdered child's mother that he will find the killer, then refuses to accept the convenient resolution offered by an arrest. Dürrenmatt examines the damage a sincere obligation can do when it hardens into an absolute demand. Joel Agee's English translation makes a short, unsettling choice. Read for the limits of the investigator's control and for the question of what he may ask of others in order to keep his word.