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Victory Square

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

From the author of New York Times bestseller The Tourist...

The revolutionary politics and chaotic history of life inside Olen Steinhauer's fictionalized Eastern European country have made his literary crime series, with its two Edgar Award nominations along with other critical acclaim, one of today's most acclaimed. Finally having reached the tumultuous 1980s, the series comes full circle as one of the earliest cases of the People's Militia reemerges to torment all of the inspectors, including Emil Brod, now the chief, who was the original detective on the case. His arrest of one of the country's revolutionary leaders in the late 1940s resulted in the politician's conviction and imprisonment, but Emil was too young in those days to understand what it meant to go up against someone so powerful—and win. Only now, in 1989, when he is days from retirement and spends more time looking over his shoulder than ahead, does he realize that what he did may get him—and others—killed.
Told against the backdrop of the crumbling forty-year-old government—with the leaders who were so new in the series debut, The Bridge of SighsVictory Square is Steinhauer at his best. Once again he masterfully makes crime fiction both personal and political, combining a story of revenge at any cost with a portrait of a country on the brink of collapse.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 11, 2007
      At the start of Edgar-finalist Steinhauer's fine fifth and final entry in his series set in an unnamed Eastern European Communist country (after 2006's Liberation Movements
      ), homicide inspector Emil Brod, now chief of police and three days from retirement, reluctantly investigates the death of Lt. Gen. Yuri Kolev. Though Kolev apparently died of a heart attack, the coroner finds deadly levels of cocaine and heroin in his blood, and a flier in Kolev's car suggests he may have been murdered by members of an underground prodemocracy group. Soon Brod uncovers a wide-ranging plot involving old friends and enemies, all of whom are frantic to take advantage of the situation when their fellow citizens, inspired by the recent fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of governments in neighboring countries, rise up to overthrow their Communist leaders. Employing an intricate story, characters both sympathetic and despicable as well as a remarkable sense of place, Steinhauer subtly illuminates an unforgettable historical moment.

    • Library Journal

      Starred review from July 1, 2007
      It is 1989 in a small, fictitious Eastern European country set to explode as its 40-year-old revolution teeters on the edge of collapse. At the same time, a murderer is on a rampage. Now head of the People's Militia and nearing retirement, Emile Brod reopens a case that started his career in the 1940s (as recounted in "The Bridge of Sighs") even as he finds his name on a list of elderly people to be eliminated. Events come fast and furiously, leaving the country in a shambles and Brod's team in disarray. Steinhauer's highly praised Eastern Europe series has been nominated for the Edgar, the Anthony, the Macavity, and other awards. The author lives in Budapest. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 4/1/07.]

      Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from July 1, 2007
      In the fifth and final installment of Steinhauers masterful Eastern European series, the story is once again told by Emil Brod. In The Bridge of Sighs (2003), it was 1948 and he was an inexperienced 22-year-old inspector in the Peoples Militia; now, in 1989, hes a tired 64 and its chief. Like Brod, his unnamed country has grown old. And over the course of six days, as Brods final case leads him back to his first, the government will falland the fight for the future may be over before its begun. If previous books upped the narrative ante, depicting the trials of crime solving in an iron curtain country, this one goes all in: Brod must find out why his own name is on a hit list while dodging riots, road closures, and sniper fire. This is remarkable storytelling, exploring the life cycle of a state through the eyes of political idealists, government informants, and good cops like Brod who just want to solve crimes. Steinhauer also offers a convincing portrait of the psychological shock that accompanies the downfall of even a hated dictator. Totalitarianism may have been intolerable, but as we see today in the countries of the former Soviet bloc, uncertain times can make citizens nostalgic for known evils.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)

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