Detective Balthazar Kovacs Danube Blues Books

Balthazar Kovacs, a detective on Budapest's murder squad, is on the trail of a dead man. Minutes ago, Kovacs received an anonymous SMS showing a body and an address: 26 Republic Square – the former Communist Party headquarters and once the most feared building in the country. But now, amid the ruins of the demolished building, Kovacs finds no dead body , just six members of the Gendarmerie – an elite police force reporting directly to the prime minister – and an invitation to hand over his phone and cease his investigation. Kovacs has taken his first step on a journey deep into Budapest's dark heart, towards a deadly intersection of the criminal underworld, the corridors of power and the ghosts of history. A journey that will force him to choose between the law and family loyalty.

'A first-class crime thriller' CHARLES CUMMINGS. THE TIMES BEST 100 BOOKS OF THE SUMMER. When Detective Balthazar Kovacs is called out before dawn to a brothel owned by his brother, he knows it can only be bad news. A customer has died in the brothel's VIP room. Worse still, he's an Arab financier, a guest of government, connected to a massive investment programme that could transform Hungary. It looks like a heart attack – but why has the brothel's CCTV footage been erased? Kovacs knows only too well the treacherous undercurrents that permeate life in Hungary's capital – the deadly intersection between the criminal underworld, the corridors of power and the ghosts of history. He knows that his investigation is more than likely to lead back to the seat of power, the Országház, in Kossuth Square... but he does not expect to be swept into his own family's dark past too.

Budapest's dark history finally catches up with Detective Balthazar Kovacs in the final instalment in Adam LeBor's Danube Blues Hungarian crime trilogy. Budapest, January 2016. The Danube is grey and half-frozen, and the city seems to have gone into hibernation. But not Detective Balthazar Kovacs. Elad Harrari, a young Israeli historian, has disappeared. There's no sign of violence but something feels very wrong. Harrari was working in the city's Jewish Museum, investigating the fate of the assets of the Hungarian Jews murdered in the Holocaust. It's clear his research set off alarm bells at one of the country's most powerful companies. The more Balthazar digs into the case, the more he is certain that shadowy forces are in play. And the pressure is building: Budapest is preparing for a major diplomatic visit – if Harrari is not found it will be cancelled. The threats against Balthazar soon turn to violence. It's clear that if he is to find the historian he will have to go face-to-face with some very dangerous people – and confront the darkest era in Hungary's past. Reviews for Dohany Street : 'Budapest is a versatile and exciting setting for Adam LeBor's superb thriller' The Times 'All the twists and turns of a high-concept Hollywood thriller' Financial Times