The Place of the Skull

Vienna 1923. Lev Dragina an ex-Bolshevik haunted by ghostly images from his violent pastis hired by criminal kingpin Max Strauss to rescue his god-daughter from rival gangsters in the Viennese slums. Continually tortured by his recollection of events from the Great War Dragina enters Vienna’s dark streets and hidden alleys: a society of gangsters and pimps prostitution and white slavery ex-soldiers and mercenaries who have found in the dreary tenements of Vienna’s ghettos the existence denied to them elsewhere. A troubled man without a home or identity Dragina searches for love and a sense of belonging while desperately looking for Strauss’ beautiful god-daughter. The adventure that ensues however leads him into a maze of byzantine intrigues that involve a war for dominance in the Viennese underworld the occult mysticism of the city’s forlorn neighborhoods and a Vatican quest to uncover the INRI inscription the sacred plaque hung over the head of Jesus during the crucifixion. There is more to the abduction than the simple kidnapping of a gangster’s goddaughter and the keys that unlock the mystery behind her disappearance also mean salvation for Lev Dragina and his tormented soul. Dismal brownstones and aristocratic mansions nefarious brothels and opium dens white slave markets and gangland executions cunning prelates and government reactionaries: the entire scope of post-war Vienna lays at the command of this novel and proves to be an inspiring milieu for The Place of the Skull.