DARK DREAMS

A timely reminder why it’s not a good idea to have an affair with a married politician while you are up for reelection.

Slovakian anti-corruption campaigner Sofia wants desperately to reestablish her romance with Ivan Boryda, the deputy prime minister who’s gone back to his wife. Soon after Sofia talks things over with her old friend Jana Matinova, now a commander in the Criminal Police (Siren of the Waters, 2008), Jana finds a fabulous blue-white diamond dangling in her living room. She reports the find to her superior, Trokan, and on his advice hides the jewel. But her apartment’s tossed, she’s followed and even her new romantic interest, a procurator in the attorney general’s office, may be investigating her. Worse, the man who raped Sofia when she was barely out of childhood is now part of the police hierarchy with ties to an underworld smuggling ring that extends from Europe to South America and beyond. The more Jana tries to extricate herself and Sofia from trouble, the more bodies pile up, not only in Bratislava but in Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, even India. It will take the help of a killer well known to the police to bring justice to Slovakia, though not quite a happy ending to both romances.

Jana’s feelings for her granddaughter are poignant, her love life perfunctory and the body count reminiscent of the national debt. American politics are child’s play compared to this seething indictment of Middle European wrangling.