Phantoms of Breslau: an Eberhard Mock investigation by
Marek Krajewski.
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"Breslau, 1919: The hideously battered, naked bodies of four sailors are
discovered on an island in the River Oder. When Criminal Assistant
Eberhard Mock, back from the war, arrives at the scene to investigate,
he finds an enigmatic note addressed to him insisting that he admit to
past mistakes and become a believer. As he endeavors to piece
together the elements of the brutal crime, Mock combs the brothels and
drinking dens of the then still-German city of Breslau and is drawn into
an insidious game: it seems that anyone he questions during the course
of the investigation is destined to become the next victim. Meanwhile, Mock uncovers a secret society that has the Criminal Assistant himself clearly in its sights. Dark, sophisticated, and uncompromising, the distinctive Breslau series has already received broad critical acclaim.
Phantoms of Breslau confirms Eberhard Mock as one of the most outrageous and original detectives in crime fiction."
publisher
The Property by Rutu Modan
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"Rutu Modan's second full-length graphic novel is a triumph of
storytelling and fine lines. After the death of her son, Regina Segal
takes her granddaughter Mica to Warsaw, hoping to reclaim a family
property lost during the Second World War. As they get to know modern
Warsaw, Regina is forced to recall difficult things about her past, and
Mica begins to wonder if maybe their reasons for coming aren't a little
different than what her grandmother led her to believe. Modan offers up a
world populated by prickly seniors, smart-alecky public servants, and
stubborn women--a world whose realism is expressed alternately in the
absurdity of people's behavior and in the complex consequences of their
sacrifices. Rutu Modan was born in Israel in 1966. She lives in Tel
Aviv."
Discover
A Grain of Truth by
Zysmunt Miloszewski
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"It
is spring 2009, and prosecutor Szacki is no longer working in Warsaw—he
has said goodbye to his family and to his career in the capital and
moved to Sandomierz, a picturesque town full of churches and museums.
Hoping to start a "brave new life," Szacki instead finds himself
investigating a strange murder case in surroundings both alien and
unfriendly.The victim is found brutally murdered, her body drained of
blood. The killing bears the hallmarks of legendary Jewish ritual
slaughter, prompting a wave of anti-Semitic paranoia in the town, where
everyone knows everyone. The murdered woman's husband is bereft, but
when Szacki discovers that she had a lover, the husband becomes the
prime suspect. Before there's time to arrest him, he is found murdered
in similar circumstances. In his investigation Szacki must wrestle with
the painful tangle of Polish–Jewish relations and something that
happened more than sixty years earlier."
publisher
The Doll by
Boleslaw Prus
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"At the center of the
book are three men from three different generations. Prus’s fatally
flawed hero is Wokulski, a successful businessman who yearns for
recognition from Poland’s decadent aristocracy and falls desperately in
love with the highborn, glacially beautiful Izabela.
Wokulski’s
story is intertwined with those of the incorrigibly romantic old clerk
Rzecki, nostalgic for the revolutions of 1848, and of the bright young
scientist Ochocki, who dreams of a future full of flying machines and
other marvels, making for a book of great scope and richness that is, as
Stanisław Barańczak writes in his introduction, at once “an
old-fashioned yet still fascinating love story . . . , a still topical
diagnosis of society’s ills, and a forceful yet subtle portrayal of a
tragically doomed man
." publisher
Pornografia by
Witold Gombrowicz
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"The place is Poland, in the early years of the German occupation.
Pornografia's narrator, an author named Witold Gombrowicz, meets a
swarthy and overly formal man named Fyderyk at a Warsaw house party, and
the two soon become engaged in a business of a dubious (if not
downright criminal) nature. When an acquaintance of theirs, a corpulent
provincial landowner named Hipolit, requests that they come stay with
him to discuss some of his city affairs, it is not hard to convince them
to leave the claustrophobic city for the fresh air of the countryside. Once
in the country, however, Fryderyk and Witold quickly bore of their
surroundings -- all of their surroundings, that is, but the two
teenagers who are staying on Hipolit's farm: Henia, Hipolit's daughter;
and Karol, the son of one of the farmhands, who has just returned from a
stint in the Polish resistance movement."
publisher
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