Russell James has been named “the Godfather of Noir” by Ian Rankin. Russell writes crime novels - about criminals and victims, not the cozy procedural or whodunnit. He is the editor of Great British Fictional Detectives.
This absorbing prize-winning novel begins in 1989, when a coastal Yugoslav village is shocked to hear that an attractive (if wild) local girl has disappeared. There are two very different explanations: that she has run away from home, or that she has been killed – and there is evidence for both. Whichever is true her family is shattered.
Mother withdraws into angry silence, broken only when she urges her husband and son to find her daughter. Because their country is descending into a brutal civil war the police lose interest.
We follow the shattered family as they try to cope with their grief. Father and son fly-post surrounding towns in an ever-increasing circle. As months turn into years and against a background of war her father gives up. But his near-catatonic wife urges her son to never give up the search.
The war drags on. His search drags on. If the girl is alive why doesn’t she contact them? If she isn’t alive, which of their neighbours killed her?
It will be three decades before he learns the shocking truth.
Editor’s Notes:
Translated into English by Mat Robinson
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