Killing Pilgrim
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4.2 • 51 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
The second novel in the Marko della Torre series, Killing Pilgrim is a propulsive political thriller following a complex plot hatched by members of the CIA and set against the backdrop of war-torn Yugoslavia.
Early autumn, 1991. Croatia and Slovenia officially declared independence from Yugoslavia, and war is imminent between the Croats and the Serbs. Department VI of the UDBA has been dismantled, while the Yugoslav government scrambles to protect the State. In the midst of the political maelstrom, secret policeman Marko della Torre gets caught in an intricate web woven by the CIA and members of the Croat nationalist movement. They enlist della Torre to make contact with a man living in the shadows: the ex-UDBA agent who assassinated Olof Palme, the former prime minister of Sweden . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mattich's excellent second Balkan thriller is less darkly humored than the first, Zagreb Cowboy, but richer in moral complexities. It's August 1991, the beginning of the end of days for Yugoslavia. Croatia and Slovenia have declared very shaky independence from the crumbling Yugoslav state, and Marko della Torre of the UDBA (Yugoslav secret police) is packing up his office for a transfer to the military. Not knowing who he's really working for in these confused times, Marko gets entangled in an assassination plot set up by a dangerous nationalist leader and led by Rebecca Vees, an icy CIA operative who is as beautiful and treacherous as the Balkan landscape. The target is a former top-level UDBA hit man known as "the Montenegrin," who's responsible for the murder of Sweden's prime minister Olof Palme; he's now retired and devoted to the caring of his disabled daughter. The sardonic tone carries over from the first book, entirely appropriate when loyalties are nonexistent and truly terrible people are carving up the remains of the country. Mattich has beautifully hit his stride.
