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.

Praise for the Novels of Olen Steinhauer
 
""Dazzling . . . a skilled writer working at the top of his form.""
--Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Liberation Movements
 
""Brano Sev is Steinhauer's most intriguing hero yet, and that's saying something. . . . With its shifting perceptions, pervasive paranoia, and truly unpredictable plot, this will be savored by readers of well-crafted espionage ranging from Alan Furst to John le Carré.""
--Booklist (starred review) on 36 Yalta Boulevard
 
""Steinhauer's people are real, the crimes genuine, and he is telling larger truths about that era, making it unusually accessible.""
--David Halberstam, Los Angeles Times, on 36 Yalta Boulevard
 
""A wonderfully taut tale that is part police procedural, part political thriller, part love story. . . . Steinhauer has created a vivid world in a lost time.""
--The Washington Post Book World on The Confession
 
""The Confession is a clever reworking of the police procedural: The narrative-within-a-narrative exposes multiple levels of complicity and guilt that make this an affecting, sobering entry in one of the most inventive series around.""
--Los Angeles Times on The Confession
 
""Think of the savage brilliance of J. Robert Janes's mysteries about World War II France; of the suspenseful erudition of Alan Furst's thrillers. Steinhauer's debut is right up there on those stellar heights, casting new light on relatively recent history we thought we already knew everything about.""
--Chicago Tribune on The Bridge of Sighs