Love, Betrayal, and Terrorism Behind the Iron CurtainMystery piles atop mystery in this fourth installment of Olen Steinhauer’s five-novel cycle of life behind the Iron Curtain. The previous books were set in decades past, the post-war 40s, 50s, and 60s. In Liberation Movements, the action takes ...
In this auspicious literary crime debut, an inexperienced homicide detective struggles amid the lawlessness of a post-WWII Eastern European city. It's August, 1948, three years after the Russians "liberated" this small nation from German Occupation. But the Red Army still patrols the capital's r...
In Brano Sev, the hero of Olen Steinhauer’s novel 36 Yalta Boulevard, you can see hints of Milo Weaver, the hero of his later novel The Tourist. Both men are spies. Both are lonely men, isolated from their families and friends by the work that they do. Both know how to stand up to torture, and bo...
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 ...
In its dark wooden walls, mirrors and intarsias of bouquets—blond walnut inlaid in the dark walls—looked down on a cramped scene of marble-topped tables stuffed with politicians involved in serious discussions over late breakfast. A woman offered to take his coat; when he declined, she frowned an...
It was the kind of moniker that worked wel in Southeast Asia, or India, which was why the Company long assumed the assassin was Asian. Only after 2003, when those few photos trickled in and were verified, did everyone realize he was of European descent. Which raised the question: Why "the Tiger"?...
The details, the fluidity. I think back a month to Bill’s hesitations, contradictions, and final breakdown. I think of Gene Wilcox, the data processor who remained at his desk those forty-eight hours without a break, absorbing all the intel and pouring it into his machine. A month and a half ago ...
They leaned against the wind, smoking or hurrying to the next warm café. Milo faced the winds along the boulevard that marked a Pest-side circular route cut in half by the Danube, then turned right onto Szondi utca. Szondi was less kept up than the boulevard, and years of soot lodged in its crevi...
She might have walked out on him, but she was in his town. He was, at heart, an optimist, and he believed—he knew—that within hours or days they would be together again. Ragged, perhaps, a little scarred, but together.By ten that evening, through a call to a contact in Egyptian security, he learn...
I brought water and lunch, but whatever she took in she immediately threw up. “Don’t tell me she drank last night,” said Ágnes over breakfast. “Sometimes it happens.” “Maybe I should start drinking.” “Maybe you should take Pavel out for a walk.” Magda was able to get a small dinner to stay down, ...