Bridge of Sighs
Emil Brod is fresh from the academy when he is appointed homicide detective for the People’s Militia in an area liberated from the Germans by the Red Army. His coworkers are strangely hostile, and when he is handed a case involving the death of a famous songwriter, Emil investigates methodically until threats to himself and loved ones cause him to abandon procedure and dig deeper in the political quagmire that seems to surround the case.
Steinhauer’s debut novel depicts life under Soviet rule in 1948 as a harsh and dismal. His characters are as perplexed by their own self-defeating actions as they are by the duplicity of their supposed comrades. The novel starts slow but builds as the mystery unravels. The author’s sparse writing feels like a translation and successfully sets the tone for the protagonist’s frustration at his ineptness as he tries to navigate the system. As in any good detective novel, all loose ends are neatly tied up by the end, and the scene is set for Emil to be granted his next case.
While this is not a light-hearted, uplifting book, it does provide insight into the lives of the Slavic people after Russian occupation. This series is recommended for those more interested in exploring Russian history than in reading a traditional whodunit.
