The Serbian Dane

9 / 10
1 vote cast
Rate this item

Click to read:

Inline Image

Authors:

Retail Price (Hardback):
Retail Price (Softback): £7.99
Retail Price (Ebook):
ISBN: 978-1-9051-4767
First Published:

Description:
What it says on the cover

LISE CARLSEN: A successful arts journalist trying to smooth over the cracks in a failed marraiage.

PER TOFTLUND: A crack member of Denmark's secret service, a lone wolf: unattached, without family and fanatically committed to his work.

VUK: A highly skilled political assassin who has lost everything in the bloody collapse of the former Yugoslavia. Raised in Denmark of Serbian descent.

Vuk has swapped identities so many times in order to survive that he can no longer see himself as anything other than a highly efficient killing machine. His victims, however, hardly get to see him at all, and by then it is too late. They're already dead.

As plans are made for a controversial Iranian author to make a rare public appearance in Copenhagen, these three separate and lonely lives suddenly find themselves on a collision course with each other. Trapped in a world of secret deals and private passions, organized crime and uncontrolled media frenzy, LIse, Per and Vuk struggle to confront a tainted past, a compromised present and an extremely uncertain future. From its terse beginnings to its unnerving, blood splattered climax, Leif Davidsen has written a taut political thriller for the time we live in today.

Publishers:
Arcadia Books

Your Opinions and Comments

9 / 10
This thriller was a real page turner, with great pace, great characters, well developed (especially Vuk - the assassin) and a story that developed well. I couldn't put it down.

It was refreshing to have time spent on developing characters, and this was done well as the story starts with Vuk - the assassin. I have no experience of Serbia, but I suspect the mood of war-torn former Yugoslavian countries has been captured well. As does the more relaxed feel of Copenhagen.

The translation was magnificent with just the odd word that didn't quite fit. (Casement was used for window on a couple of occasions)

The small text (in the paperback edition I read) was initially a little tiring, but as the book had 267 pages, it was a pleasing to note that paper is being saved (unlike the wasteful use made by James Patterson in the Alex Cross paperbacks). Particularly appropriate as Denmark will be hosting the Climate Change Conference at the end of 2009.

A great book, I just wondered if was printed on paper from sustainable forests?
posted by David Shepherd on 7/3/2009 19:40