Olen Steinhauer: The Bridge of Sighs

Reviewied by Olen Steinhauer

Times don't change, do they?" one character rhetorically asks in this bleak, political crime novel set in an unnamed postwar Eastern European country in 1948. The Gestapo have been vanquished by the invading Russians, replacing one system of fear, suspicion and reprisal with another.

Our hero, Emil, a 22-year-old cynical idealist, has come to his country's capital as a homicide inspector with the People's Militia. He craves "devotion" and begins each day with an incongruous yet appealing hopefulness and optimism, although his life experience has prepared him for nothing more than the corruption, brutality and destruction he sees all around him.

Abused by his dour workmates who believe he's a spy, he is given a case he quickly perceives as a trap: a famous state songwriter has been murdered, and the evidence points to the highest levels of the governing Party. The case leads him through the morass of his devastated society and, while Steinhauer has created a genuinely gripping police procedural, it's the feel of the social landscape that gives the novel its power and memorability.

This is the first in a series which will take us forward in leaps of 10 years or so through the postwar history of Eastern Europe. The second, The Confession, will be available at the end of next month.

Arrow, $26.95

* Margie Thomson is the NZ Herald's books editor