Cobblestone

Ranging through a history of changing empires monarchies countries regimes religions down to the disappearing shop-fronts and street names Hungary is always there through the Millennium celebrations over a century ago amid the exhausted last days of communism and even under todays illiberal democracy. A vast sprawling novel linking a meticulously plotted jewel theft in 1896 Budapest to the impulsive crime of passion that sinks the plotters - and to the history of modern Hungary of the anonymous narrators family and of life on earth.... A heroically scaled assault on narrative and causality.... Ulysses-like. KIRKUSMore science fiction than a detective novel not the usual cynical detective novel but the big story of the early twentieth century throughout Europe with the streets and brothels of Budapest at its center.... A fascinating mosaic of the underworld of Budapest as well as a fantastic heist story. International Noir Fiction