Dark
Dreams
A
Commander Jana Matinova Mystery
Michael
Genelin
Soho
Crime (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-56947-557-1 (1569475571)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-557-7 (9781569475577)
Publication Date: July 2009
List Price: $24.00
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Jana and Sofia were best friends as schoolmates in
communist Czechoslovakia. Jana’s a judge’s
daughter, was prudent; Sofia, impetuous. Now, Jana, who entered the
Czechoslovakian police force, has risen to the rank of commander in the
post-communist country of Slovakia, based in its capital, Bratislava, a
crossroads of Central Europe.
Sofia, formerly a fiercely independent political reformer, is now a
member of parliament and is having a scandalous affair. When she finds
herself in a political predicament, she appeals to her old friend for
help.
One night, Jana returns home to find an enormous diamond suspended from
a string in her living room. A fabulous gift? Or, for a police officer,
a trap? Can Sofia be implicated somehow?
The search for answers leads Jana across Europe to unravel am
international criminal conspiracy that has perpetrated multiple murders
in Nepal, India, Switzerland, Hungary, and Bratislava itself and
threatens Jana’s career, family and life.
Review:
In Michael Genelin’s second novel in the Commander Jana
Matinova series, Jana’s lot in life hasn’t gotten
much better. A young grandmother she’s still mourning the
loss of her bank robber husband, experiencing dark dreams about her
dead daughter, and struggling to survive in a cesspool of political,
judicial and police department corruption. Even the bright spots of a
visit with her granddaughter and a passionate affair with a government
lawyer fade to black when an attempted kidnapping fails and her lover
appears to be joining anti-corruption forces waging a bitter war
against her.
Set in post-communist Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia,
Genelin’s novel brings a sense of dark realism to the
politics of the struggling country. Jana is on the edges of the
maelstrom since her earliest friend, Sofia, raped years ago by a now
prominent political figure, has rebounded to become a member of
parliament and has had a torrid affair with the designated deputy prime
minister that has boiled over into the national newspapers. Jana has
her own problems to face. In her rise through the ranks she’s
accumulated enemies, and someone is out to get her, even going so far
as to plant incriminating evidence of corruption and trying to
assassinate her while she investigates a series of murders, some
obviously related to an international smuggling ring. In her rough and
tumble world, Jana’s no goody two shoes. She’s not
above threatening witnesses and suspects alike, shooting alleged
criminals, or bending the law to its breaking point. On her softer side
she is torn with the threat of losing contact with her granddaughter,
and falls in love with a government prosecutor who sees her as
”the youngest, prettiest, and sexiest grandmother I have ever
seen.” Her boss, with his fetish for collecting police
headgear from around the world, is a memorable character too. But while
their relationship is a supportive one, others of Matinova’s
crumble, especially when she catches her deputy rifling through her
desk, gets caught in a cross-fire of bullets between anti-corruption
police and unidentified shooters, and has a falling out with
best-friend Sofia over her newly-found allegiances, including her
earlier rapist.
A highly competent thriller by a UCLA graduate lawyer who has worked at
the Department of Justice in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary,
Genelin’s novel is an excellent tour through the Slovakian
environs and neighbouring countries – even to scenes and
murders in Nepal, India and Switzerland. It’s an even darker
trip through the hearts and minds of warring criminal gangs, of a
corrupt politician and his even more devious wife, and of jealous
lovers and rogue police officers. It’s a slam-bang trip well
worth taking if only for Matinova’s astonishing role in the
final scene in ensuring rough justice of the direst kind is meted out
to a deserving murderer who appears to have eluded the formal justice
system.
Special thanks to M. Wayne Cunningham (mw_cunningham@telus.net) for contributing his review of Dark Dreams and to Soho Press for providing a copy of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — M. Wayne Cunningham — All Rights Reserved — Reprinted with Permission
Have you read Dark Dreams? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series …
Siren of the Waters
Soho Crime (Hardcover), July 2008
ISBN-10: 1-56947-484-2 (1569474842)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-484-6 (9781569474846)
Dark Dreams
Soho Crime (Hardcover), July 2009
ISBN-10: 1-56947-557-1 (1569475571)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-557-7 (9781569475577)
Omnimystery
keywords for Dark Dreams
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Location(s) referenced: Slovakia.
