Why a Booktrail?
1930s: A return to the days of Budapest Noir
Budapest Noir
What you need to know before your trail
A dark, riveting, and lightning fast novel of murder, intrigue, and political corruption, set in 1936 Hungary during the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, Budapest Noir marks the emergence of an extraordinary new voice in literary crime fiction, Vilmos Kondor. Kondor’s remarkable debut brings this European city to breathtaking life–from the wealthy residential neighborhoods of Buda to the slums of Pest–as it follows crime reporter Zsigmond Gordon’s investigation into the strange death of a beautiful woman. As Gordon’s search for the truth leads him to shocking revelations about a seedy underground crime syndicate and its corrupt political patrons, Budapest Noir will transport you to a dark time and place, and hold you there spellbound until the final page is turned.
Travel Guide
Travel BookTrail style to Budapest and Budapest Noir
This is a great book for navigating around the city of Budapest, its politics and history. It’s also a place of suicide if this novel is anything to go by. The descriptions of such acts are painful and raw:
”Maids drank ground-up match heads to poison themselves and flung themselves in front of trams. Barbers dismembered their lovers. Divorcees slashed their veins with razors. Tradesmen’s apprentices leaped off the Franz Joseph Bridge. Jealous civil servants cut their wives to shreds with butcher knives. Businessmen shot their rivals with revolvers. The possibilities were endless, and yet they were oppressively the same, for the end was always identical.”
This novel will give you a bleak view of the city. People who live here are torn between life and their dreams of a better future. Politicians promise the world and deliver nothing. The events which occur at the start of the book colour everything which follows: it’s 1936, just after the death of a populist leader who wanted to impose a fascist regime.
Budapest actually named a place in the city “Hitler Square,” which is today’s Kodály Circle.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Budapest Noir
Destination/Location : Budapest Author/Guide:Vilmos Kondor Departure Time: 1930s
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