Svećenik i demoni
When a police inspector receives news of the brutal murder of a priest, and then goes out into the field and finds a bracelet with an engraved name, one has no choice but to think that we are at the beginning of an intriguing crime story.
But just as some names can be both female and male, some novels are not what they appear to be at the first sentence. Robert Nezirović's novel is energetic and dynamic, as the genre requires, but who brought it is not in the foreground here, although, don't worry, you will find out in the end.
A successful neurosurgeon, a politician on a downward trajectory, a representative of Zagreb's underground and an architect once sat together in the school desks of the coastal city, and now, each of them from their complicated lives, will briefly go to the funeral of a schoolmate, a murdered priest. While the investigation is going on in the background, each of the characters, including the inspector who leads it, struggles with their private and professional setbacks, and the intertwining of their stories opens up numerous neuralgic themes of turbulent reality. And while one bracelet is looking for its owner, pieces of the well-known bilge are torn from the whirlwind of the characters' lives - the combination of politics and the mafia, political turbulence, homophobia, drugs and prostitution - along with marital shipwrecks, illnesses, loneliness, and even an obsession with a pop star.
Through the destinies of the characters, Nezirović scans various layers of society, and in this one can clearly feel the criticism towards deviations, immorality, and corruption. The characters are not just figures that depict society, but are carefully characterized with their inner and outer demons that come to light when we least expect it.
One copy is available