Product Details
Victory Square

Victory Square
By Olen Steinhauer

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Product Description

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 Sighs—Victory 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.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #853348 in Books
  • Published on: 2007-08-21
  • Released on: 2007-08-21
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 368 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
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. (Aug.)
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* In the fifth and final installment of Steinhauer's 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 People's Militia; now, in 1989, he's a tired 64 and its chief. Like Brod, his unnamed country has grown old. And over the course of six days, as Brod's final case leads him back to his first, the government will fall—and the fight for the future may be over before it's 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. Graff, Keir

Review
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. --Booklist (starred review)
Employing an intricate story, characters both sympathetic and despicable as well as a remarkable sense of place, Steinhauer subtly illuminates an unforgettable historical moment. --Publishers Weekly
Brilliant conclusion of his ambitious Eastern European series....Masterful. --Kirkus Reviews
This story catches all the danger and excitement of the historic moment. --New York Times Book Review
Clipped, economical prose....Steinhauer offers a concrete end to the sins of the past. --Los Angeles Times --.