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One evening in the winter of 1991 I was having dinner in Zagreb with fellow foreign correspondents. Croatia was at war, bombarded by the Yugoslav army. The streets were crowded with soldiers and refugees. But there was no shortage of food. We asked the waiter what fish was available. “Croatian fish,” he replied, his stare hard. How can a fish have a nationality, I silently wondered. Quite easily, I later realised, when your homeland and its coastline are being strafed and bombed.
Jurica Pavičić’s outstanding crime thriller Red Water (Bitter Lemon £9.99) opens in September 1989 as Yugoslavia’s communist dictatorship is collapsing. The rest of central and eastern Europe is preparing for freedom and democracy. Yugoslavia’s republics are preparing for war. The politics though are a backdrop, on which Pavičić paints a profoundly human story of loss and longing. When 17-year-old Silva disappears her family is thrown into turmoil. Has she run away or been murdered? Either seems possible. Her father Jakov and twin brother Mate search frantically for her in vain. But Silva, it is soon revealed, is not an innocent but was dealing drugs.
Jakov eventually gives up but Mate never does, criss-crossing Europe for years. Pavičić weaves the fallout of Silva’s disappearance against the backdrop of the Balkan wars and their aftermath into a gripping, seamless narrative. It is not until 2015 that Silva’s fate is revealed in a dark, wholly unexpected twist. Yugoslavia needed Tito and communism to remain united. Silva’s family needed her to hold itself together. Without her, it eventually disintegrates, breaking up, like their homeland, into its constituent parts. Yet the story also ends with the promise of redemption. This finely engineered, haunting novel has been deservedly garlanded with awards.
After a series of smart international espionage thrillers, Chris Pavone has set his latest work at home in Manhattan. The Doorman (Aries £18.99/MCD $30) may unfold in a much smaller arena but the Upper West Side is still a world full of passion, envy and betrayal, equally rich in dramatic potential. Pavone is an expert guide and digs deep into New York’s hyper-socially stratified urban grid to unpeel the fear and loathing that can lie behind apparently content lives. There are echoes of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities and the story takes a while to get going as Pavone introduces the various characters and their storylines. But he moves between the ultra-luxurious lives of the uber-rich and those who serve them — and open their doors — with skill and aplomb, steadily building up the tension, until the story suddenly roars upwards into a world of murder and mayhem. A steamy, adulterous love affair and its poignant aftermath are especially well-drawn. If you plan to visit New York this summer — or even if you don’t — put The Doorman on your holiday books list.
Michael Cordy’s Manhattan Down (Bantam £16.99) also unfolds in New York, on September 10, one day before the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack. The climate crisis is out of control and the leaders of the 193 member states of the United Nations are gathered at its headquarters. The date is carefully chosen: the Waking Eye, a ruthless, highly organised eco-terrorist group, has launched an unprecedented assault on the city: sending almost everyone to sleep, apart from Samantha Rossi, a single mother who has just been handed a medical death sentence and Nick Lockwood, a detective who awakes from a coma. Cordy specialises in fast-paced, high-concept thrillers where the fate of multitudes, if not all humanity, is at stake. The world’s leaders are the first to be threatened with death unless they meet the Waking Eye’s demands. The somniferous plot device strains belief, but Rossi and Lockwood, forced to work together, make a convincing team in this fast-paced read as they face a cohort of murderous, supremely self-righteous eco-warriors.
Donald Trump’s threats against Greenland have thrust the Earth’s northernmost reaches back into the spotlight. As the polar ice-caps melt, the superpowers and international corporations circle greedily around its potential mineral riches. Aslak Nore’s The Heirs of the Arctic (MacLehose £22, translated by Seán Kinsella) mixes a Succession-style family saga with a geopolitical thriller. The book is the second in a series about the powerful Falck dynasty but Nore, a bestselling author in his native Norway, drip feeds enough back story for this volume to stand on its own. The narrative moves smoothly between the snowy wastelands of the Arctic and the family infighting for control of the business. Meanwhile, a foreign spy is buried deep within the family foundation, digging out and leaking information. Vivid scene-setting adds to an intelligent, enjoyable mix with a sharp twist at the end.
And finally, a brief mention for Heidi Amsinck’s Out of the Dark (Muswell Press £10.99). Amsinck quickly draws the reader into this fast-paced, unsettling Danish crime thriller, the fourth in the series featuring Jensen, a tenacious Copenhagen journalist who teams up with her former lover, DI Henrik Jungersen. Amsinck, who reported on Britain for the Danish press, has a fine eye for detail and atmosphere as Jensen and Jungersen, on the trail of a missing girl, step deep into darkest side of Denmark’s criminal underworld.
Adam LeBor is the author of ‘The Last Days of Budapest: Spies, Nazis, Rescuers and Resistance 1940-45’ (Bloomsbury)
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