I want to recommend Olen
Steinhauer's 'The Confession' to the list - a really fine
haunted homicide detective novel set in Eastern Europe in the
50's.
In 1956, Khrushchev denounces Stalinism, thawing cold fear
across the Eastern Bloc. Amidst the heady optimism of
short-lived strikes and protests, a general amnesty for
political prisoners is declared, and old injustices are
roused as vengeful retributions. Down at People's Militia
hq., Inspector Ferenc Kolyeszar is faced with an apparent
suicide, the missing wife of a prominent Party member, a
charred and brutalized corpse, the watchful eyes of a newly
arrived official from Moscow and his sycophant on the force,
a bad case of writer's block, and the imminent collapse of
his marriage. An old friend and fellow officer appears to be
cuckolding him, and Ferenc is nursing some latent obsessions
of his own, sexual and otherwise. The story of a troubled
homicide detective wrestling with internal and external
demons is hardly new, but seldom is it presented with such
depth and personal intensity. Beyond delivering an involving
police procedural in an intriguing setting, the author
relates with spare irony and doomed pathos his narrator's
psychological journey through the vexatious complexities of
marriage and totalitarian life, drawn toward the deceptive
clarity of brutal action. This second installment in a
loosely-linked series is enthusiastically recommended for all
mystery collections, and to all fans of well-made hardboiled
and noir fiction.
David Wright
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