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Title details for The Confession by Olen Steinhauer - Available

The Confession

#2 in series

by Olen Steinhauer
Robertson Dean
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

Eastern Europe, 1956 — Comrade Inspector Ferenc Kolyeszar, a proletariat writer as well as a state militia homicide detective, is a man on the brink. Estranged from his wife, whom he believes is cheating on him with one of his colleagues, and frustrated by writer's block, Ferenc's attention is focused on his job. But his job is growing increasingly political, something that makes him profoundly uncomfortable.

When Ferenc is asked to look into the disappearance of a party member's wife and learns some unsavory facts about their lives, the absurdity of his position as an employee of the state is suddenly exposed. At the same time, he and his fellow militia officers are pressed into service policing a popular demonstration in the capital, one that Ferenc might rather be participating in. These two situations, coupled with an investigation into the murder of a painter that leads them to a man recently released from the camps, brings Ferenc closer to danger than ever before—from himself, from his superiors, and from the capital's shadowy criminal element.

The Confession is a fantastic follow-up to Olen Steinhauer's brilliant debut, The Bridge of Sighs, and propelled this talented writer into the ranks of the premiere thriller writers of a generation.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Yalta Boulevard Sequence

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 15, 2005

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781481599634
      • File size: 307412 KB
      • Duration: 10:40:26

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The setting of this dark novel is an unnamed country in Eastern Europe in 1956. It's a fictional composite of all the enslaved nations of the period. The primary plot concerns the investigation of a murder. The subplots derive from the psychological baggage that accrues to people who live in such surreal environments. When cruelty is commonplace, the victims become cruel--or the message may be that everyone is a victim. This book poses some difficulties for a narrator. The characters represent various countries and social backgrounds. The atmosphere is so Kafkaesque that joy is unimaginable, and being tortured isn't so different from normal life. Robertson Dean struggles with all this at times but does a creditable job at representing the dark mood while keeping the listener engaged with the plot. R.E.K. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from December 1, 2003
      Steinhauer's original and mesmerizing first mystery, 2002's The Bridge of Sighs
      , was set in 1949, in an unnamed East European country. Now it's 1956, and the homicide detective who starred in that first book—the young, hopeful Emil Brod—has become a dour and pragmatic secondary character as the promise of the immediate postwar years fades. Steinhauer focuses instead on another police officer, the looming Ferenc Kolyeszar, a huge man who wears on each finger a ring with a grisly history. Ferenc is a talented novelist, though his sole published book so far exists only as a tattered paperback. But the confession of the title is in fact the subject of his next book—a jarring and pessimistic work about the fate of artists, indeed of all human beings, in the Soviet-haunted satellite countries, where work camps in the 1950s rival those of the Stalinist Soviet Union. Haunted by his wife's infidelities and driven perversely into his own, Ferenc falls afoul of a smiling KGB agent named Kaminski who has been assigned to his office. Investigating several past and present murders, Ferenc digs a hole for himself that is both believable and inevitable. Bigger in scope and slower-moving than The Bridge of Sighs
      , with deaths and deceptions snowballing grotesquely, the novel makes readers wonder just what Steinhauer will do for the next book in his series—and how far into the future it will take his team of citizen cops. Agent, Matt Williams.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 3, 2004
      Ferenc Kolyeszar, the main character in this sharp tale of murder, political intrigue and human failings, is a large, disillusioned police inspector with a weakness for drink and cigarettes. Narrator Dean's naturally deep, gravelly voice works well in that context, but the rest of his performance is uneven. The novel takes place in an unnamed Eastern Bloc nation in 1956, and it centers on a series of converging discoveries by Kolyeszar and his colleagues. As Moscow asserts an increasing influence in the country, their office and their personal lives become charged with distrust and fear, a sense that becomes more pronounced as they draw closer to unveiling a dire secret. Dean has a clear sense of drama and narrative pacing, and he wisely steps back and allows Steinhauer (The Bridge of Sighs
      ) to set the progressively nervy tone. But while he renders most of the male characters believably—albeit without much nuance—he struggles with females and with sustaining any voice that's said to have an idiosyncrasy. The production is spare and straightforward, but the engrossing story makes up for the recording's slight imperfections. Simultaneous release with the St. Martin's Minotaur hardcover (Forecasts, Dec. 1, 2003).

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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