District VIII by Adam Lebor

District VIII by Adam Lebor

The dead, however, don't care. So when Balthazar Kovacs, a detective in the city's murder squad, gets a mysterious text message on his phone, he gulps down his coffee and goes to work. The message has two parts: a photograph and an address. The photograph shows a man, in his early thirties, lying on his back with his eyes open, half-covered by a blue plastic sheet. The address is 26 Republic Square, the former Communist Party headquarters, and once the most feared building in the country. But when Kovacs arrives at Republic Square, the body is gone.

Inspired by true events, the novel takes the reader to a hidden city within Budapest and an underworld that visitors never get to see: the gritty back alleys of District VI; the endemic corruption that reaches deep into government as officials plunder state coffers at will; a rule of law bent to serve the interests of the rich and powerful; the rising power of international organized crime gangs who use the Hungarian capital as a springboard for their European operations; and a troubling look at the ghosts of Communism (and Nazism) that still haunt Budapest.

Adam LeBor writes for The Economist, the New York Times, The Times (London), Monocle, Newsweek, and numerous other publications. He is the author of The Geneva Option and The Washington Stratagem, also featuring Yael Azoulay, and The Budapest Protocol. In addition he has written a number of nonfiction books, including Tower of Basel, the first investigative history of the Bank for International Settlements; Hitler's Secret Bankers, short-listed for the Orwell Prize; City of Oranges, short-listed for the Jewish Quarterly Prize; and Complicity with Evil. He lives in Budapest, Hungary.