It is 1956. Radio reports of the Hungarian Revolution break through the government’s radio jamming, setting the entire Eastern Bloc on edge.
Inspector Ferenc Kolyeszar must track down a murderer while dealing with his crumbling marriage. As he is drawn deep into an underworld of betrayal and violence, he finds that he is not so different from those he pursues.
The setting of this dark novel is an unnamed country in Eastern Europe in 1956. It's a fictional composite of all the enslaved nations of the period. The primary plot concerns the investigation of a murder. The subplots derive from the psychological baggage that accrues to people who live in such surreal environments. When cruelty is commonplace, the victims become cruel--or the message may be that everyone is a victim. This book poses some difficulties for a narrator. The characters represent various countries and social backgrounds. The atmosphere is so Kafkaesque that joy is unimaginable, and being tortured isn't so different from normal life. Robertson Dean struggles with all this at times but does a creditable job at representing the dark mood while keeping the listener engaged with the plot. R.E.K. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
About the Creator
Olen Steinhauer was raised in Virginia and Texas and attended Emerson College. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship that enabled him to live in Romania for ten months and provided the impetus for a lifelong fascination with Eastern Europe. He currently lives in Hungary.
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