The Return of Lieutenant Boruvka

Boruvka is working as a parking-lot attendant in downtown Toronto after a spectacular escape from a Czech prison which provoked an international scandal when a young woman is murdered perhaps in a spy coverup. Boruvka lends his years of experience and hard-won pessimism to the neophyte Canadians on the case (including his daughter who works for a feminist detective agency).By having this story--his most riveting and funniest yet--narrated by the murdered woman''s brother an amiable WASP Josef Skvorecky sets the Old World against the New and pokes fun at the absurdities on both sides of our cultural divide. In the end as an old war crime is avenged the narrator discovers the source of Lieutenant Boruvka''s mournful demeanour.