SOURCE: Adams, Jeffrey. Review of Liebesfluchten, by Bernhard Schlink. World Literature Today 75, no. 1 (winter 2001): 147-48.

In the following review, Adams lauds Schlink's examination of love and passion in Liebesfluchten.

After establishing himself as a prize-winning author of popular crime novels, Bernhard Schlink published the best-selling novel Der Vorleser, which in the eyes of many elevated him to a higher level of literary achievement. His latest book, [Liebesfluchten,] a collection of stories about love, indicates that Schlink will continue to set higher literary goals for himself, but without giving up the elements that made his previous writings commercially viable: the twisting plots and surprise endings of the crime genre and the undemanding, straightforward style that makes him such an easy read.

As the book's title announces, these stories concern the “flights of love.” Whether drawn by love's magnetic pull or fleeing its stifling clutches, the characters in these very...