The Monkey House
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
Rosso is the detective inspector trying to find a brutal murderer in the heart of a Balkan city ravaged by war. He has learnt to take each day as it comes, with violence and death around every corner.
Luka is the local crime boss, intent on exploiting the misery of his city's inhabitants while also providing the only means of defence they have left.
Tanja is the young woman loved, and set up, by both men and faced with an impossible conflict of loyalties.
Flett is the foreign reporter, a US citizen who hears and sees it all, partially protected by his job, but like the others, sucked into the mire that is Sarajevo, a battered but defiant capital torn apart by a civilisation that has turned on itself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wartorn Sarajevo provides the setting for this gripping, atmospheric thriller in the tradition of le Carre and Cruz Smith's Gorky Park. Police superintendent Rosso, a Croat and Sarajevo's "top cop," returns home from Zagreb to learn of a recent murder his ill-equipped, understaffed detective squad hasn't even bothered to investigate: of a Serbian dentist--and sometime police informant--found dead in her bathtub. Luka, a dangerous warlord and black marketeer, is Rosso's top suspect, but Rosso's authority is mostly a memory of peacetime, while Luka's troops are active throughout the city. Nor can Rosso expect much help from the citizenry--what is one more murder in a city engulfed by violence and death? Rosso's Serbian wife suggests he drop the matter as she hides in a haze of alcoholism and fear. Their Muslim goddaughter, Tanja--who may be having an affair with Luka--also urges caution. But Rosso must stand against this rampant amorality, for very personal reasons, for his family and for his homeland. Fullerton, a Reuters reporter, steers clear of trying to explain the Bosnian conflict. Instead, he brings it to life through the hardships and dangers his characters accept as daily routine--just as, in this engaging and timely first novel, he dramatizes personal relationships every bit as thorny as the politics that have ravaged a once beautiful land. Author tour.
