About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

HARD CURRENCY
by Steven Owad
Five Star, July 2012
261 pages
$25.95
ISBN: 1432825798


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

In the three years since the Communist regime fell, dissident Julian Król has found that the freedom he fought for is at best a mixed blessing. He's working as a reporter but is disillusioned by the grasping, dysfunctional new society he helped bring about. His only living family member is a younger sister from whom he has become estranged. Krystyna was a gifted student working on a master's degree in South Asian languages when she abruptly dropped out of the university, declaring her independence from her brother and his plans for her. One winter day he's summoned by the police, who tell him that, in the years of their estrangement, she had worked as a prostitute; her death from an overdose of meth and hashish is ruled a suicide.

He is stunned by news. Though their estrangement was so complete that he can't deny she might have been hooking, there is one thing he is certain the police have gotten wrong: Krystyna was allergic to an entire class of plants that included marijuana. Coming into contact with hashish would not be fatal, but would have made her too sick to carry out the suicide the police describe. He's convinced that his sister was murdered and that since the police won't bother, he'll have to find the killer himself. When a letter she sent shortly before her death arrives, his suspicions are confirmed. She was planning to move to Pakistan.

As Julian tries to reconstruct his sister's last days, Krystyna's roommate Irina Platz embarks on one of her hare-brained schemes to shake down a wealthy man – one who Krystyna had told her was a successful smuggler. Irina needs a big score so she can achieve her dream – moving to Canada, pristine land of opportunity. At the same time, an honorable police officer is investigating Krystyna's death. Things come to a head in a cinematic showdown in an unusual place.

Canadian writer Owad has done an excellent job of creating vivid characters in an intriguing locale – Poland during the difficult years of reinvention after Communist rule. His good guys are flawed and his bad guys plausibly ambiguous, taking their shot at success in the moral vacuum left by the collapse of the regime. The only character who is somewhat sketchily drawn is the dead sister, whose motives are explained, yet emotionally murky. The author packs a lot into a spare package. Though thankfully the book doesn't suffer from the obesity epidemic that is nudging books toward 400 pages, I found myself at times wishing for a bit more description and texture, if only because I wanted to spend more time in a setting is so rich with possibilities.

§ Barbara Fister is an academic librarian, columnist, and author of the Anni Koskinen mystery series.

Reviewed by Barbara Fister, August 2012

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]