The Small Boat of Great Sorrows

by Dan Fesperman (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $3.28

  The eagerly awaited second novel by the author of the John Creasey award-winning LIE IN THE DARK, described by Ian Rankin as 'a humane and moving book, a great war novel, a great crime novel. A great novel, period.' Vlado Petric, former detective in war-torn Sarajevo, has left his beloved homeland to join his wife and daughter in Germany, where he scratches a meagre living in the building sites of the new Berlin. When Petric returns to work one evening, he finds an enigmatic American investigator waiting for him in the small apartment he and his wife share. The investigator (Pine) works for the International War Crimes Tribunal, and he tells Petric that they want him to return to Croatia. It doesn't take Petric long to accept, especially when Pine tells him they are after a big fish: the man whom they think is responsible for a terrible massacre in Srebenica. What Petric doesn't know is that he is also being used as a bait to lure a murderer from the previous generation into the open; a man whose activities in the Second World War makes the current generation of killers look like amateurs. The Small Boat of Great Sorrows is a wonderful, thought-provoking, gripping novel; crime in so much as it needs a label, international thriller in its scope and narrative drive. Like John Le Carre and Robert Harris, Fesperman moves seamlessly between time schemes as the past informs and impacts on the present - and nowhere is this more evident than in the Balkans with its traumatic history. In Fesperman, we have a quality author, writing novels packed with authentic detail, and characters who are totally bellevable.

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $4.52

  Vlado Petric, former detective in war-torn Sarajevo, has left his beloved homeland to join his wife and daughter in Germany, where he scratches a meagre living among the dust of former conflicts on the building sites of the new Berlin. Returning home one evening, he finds an enigmatic American investigator waiting for him in the small apartment he now shares with his wife and daughter. The investigator, Calvin Pine, works for the International War Crimes Tribunal, and he tells Petric that they want him to go to The Hague. It doesn't take Petric long to accept, especially when Pine tells him they are after a big fish: one of the men who they think is responsible for the terrible massacre of Srebrenica. What Petric doesn't know is that he is also being used as bait to lure into the open a murderer from the previous generation; a man whose activities in the Second World War makes the current generation of killers look like amateurs. As Petric travels from modern-day Germany, through the ruins of Bosnia, to the peaceful hills of southern Italy where bitter, unresolved tensions still crackle beneath the surface, the stakes become all too personal. And he soon finds that investigating the mysteries of the past can be every bit as dangerous as finding his way through the war zones of the present.