Courtney McGrailThis is an interesting exploration of the state of Eastern Europe since the fall of communism, in many ways it echoes the atmosphere of a 1930s novel, but yet is right up to date in the attitudes to society and politics and money. This is a world which the author, a former journalist turned industrialist, turned novelist knows well.
His plot draws on his own experiences in a broad way, with escape and exile in Canada in particular, yet he remains very much engaged with the day to day reality of Romania and Hungary, but his novel tells the readers a great deal indeed about mentalities which in the coming years they may well need to know a great deal more about.
Unusual and esoteric, but one for the adventurous summer reader.