Lie in the Dark

Chasing murderers in the middle of a civil war might seem absurd, and also dangerous. But that is Investigator Petric’s job as one of the few homicide detectives left in Sarajevo. Anarchy masquerades as authority, and Petric must struggle against the chaos even to remain the policeman and not become the prey. Lie in the Darkbrilliantly renders the fragmented society and underworld of Sarajevo at war-the freelancing gangsters, guilty bystanders, the drop-in foreign correspondents, and the bureaucrats frightened for their jobs and very lives. It weaves through this torn cityscape the alienation and terror of one man’s desperate and deadly pursuit of bad people in an even worse place.

Dan Fesperman, a former foreign correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, is the author of ten novels of international intrigue. His books have won a Dashiell Hammett Award for best novel and two Dagger awards from the Crime Writers Association.