Review of 'The Confession (Inspector Ferenc Kolyeszar)' on Goodreads
4 stars
Set in 1956 in a fictional, Eastern European country which the author describes as "the intersection of Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Hungary, and Romania", three cases--an open-and-closed suicide, a missing woman, and a decade-old murder of a colleague--come together and force Inspector Ferenc Kolyeszar to examine his own character, and all in the midst of uprisings and Communist crackdowns.
Building on the success of his remarkable debut, The Bridge of Sighs, Olen Steinhauer gives us the second installment in his "Yalta Boulevard Sequence", this time featuring a different investigator from the same militia office: the battle-scarred, one-time author Ferenc Kolyeszar. What follows is truly a confession, for Ferenc is a plagued man. Stuck in a bad marriage, ravaged by his experiences in World War II, embarrassed by his lackluster writing career, and forced to cynically go out into the streets every day to investigate hopeless cases in a repressive Communist …
Set in 1956 in a fictional, Eastern European country which the author describes as "the intersection of Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, Hungary, and Romania", three cases--an open-and-closed suicide, a missing woman, and a decade-old murder of a colleague--come together and force Inspector Ferenc Kolyeszar to examine his own character, and all in the midst of uprisings and Communist crackdowns.
Building on the success of his remarkable debut, The Bridge of Sighs, Olen Steinhauer gives us the second installment in his "Yalta Boulevard Sequence", this time featuring a different investigator from the same militia office: the battle-scarred, one-time author Ferenc Kolyeszar. What follows is truly a confession, for Ferenc is a plagued man. Stuck in a bad marriage, ravaged by his experiences in World War II, embarrassed by his lackluster writing career, and forced to cynically go out into the streets every day to investigate hopeless cases in a repressive Communist regime: there's little for him to be satisfied about in his life.
In his second outing, Steinhauer adds a great deal of character to this novel. There are numerous events which detail Ferenc's life and his personality. There's a melancholic element and a sense of fatalism. Even a bit of darkness and brutality. He's a human who's been suppressed a little too long. Even the secondary characters are quite remarkable, perhaps more so for their ambiguity as is the case of Brano Sev.
The plot is all intricately tied together, so I won't give it away for fear of spoilers. There is some misdirection, some danger, and a fair bit of suspense. It isn't a fast-paced, run-for-your-life, shoot-'em-up. Rather, it is a methodical revelation of the clues and their impact on the people associated with the story. And it's all set in a backdrop of social unrest, which accounts for a great deal of the atmosphere and mood. At no point did I feel bored with the story or wonder why certain things were included.
Some of the themes and topics Steinhauer discusses are literature, writing, art, suppression of the people, marriage, repression, alienation, propaganda, guilt, and more. Even though it's set a long time ago in place that never existed, it is very relevant for us today, especially observing things like the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street.
If I were to pick some weaknesses, it would be that some of the interaction between Ferenc and his wife didn't always seem natural, and the plot required too much explaining rather than being easy to understand just by how it unfolded. I felt the novel teetered between 3 and 4 stars at various points throughout, but the conclusion was so strong that I settled on 4.
This is part two in a five-book series. It isn't entirely necessary to read The Bridge of Sighs first, but it adds so much to the poignancy that I think it's worth it. If you're a fan of John le Carré, Martin Cruz Smith, Alan Furst, or Philip Kerr, then I'd say give Steinhauer a try.
