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Book Summary and Reviews of Victory Square by Olen Steinhauer

Victory Square by Olen Steinhauer

Victory Square

by Olen Steinhauer

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  • Aug 2007, 368 pages
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Book Summary

The revolutionary politics and chaotic history of life inside Olen Steinhauer’s fictionalized Eastern European country have made his literary crime series, with its two Edgar Award nominations along with other critical acclaim, one of today’s most acclaimed. Finally having reached the tumultuous 1980s, the series comes full circle as one of the earliest cases of the People’s Militia reemerges to torment all of the inspectors, including Emil Brod, now the chief, who was the original detective on the case. His arrest of one of the country’s revolutionary leaders in the late 1940s resulted in the politician’s conviction and imprisonment, but Emil was too young in those days to understand what it meant to go up against someone so powerful—and win. Only now, in 1989, when he is days from retirement and spends more time looking over his shoulder than ahead, does he realize that what he did may get him—and others—killed.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Employing an intricate story, characters both sympathetic and despicable as well as a remarkable sense of place, Steinhauer subtly illuminates an unforgettable historical moment." - PW.

This information about Victory Square was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Olen Steinhauer Author Biography

Photo: Nancy Crampton

Olen Steinhauer grew up in Virginia, and has lived throughout the US and Europe. He spent a year in Romania on a Fulbright grant, an experience that helped inspire his first five books. He now splits his time between Hungary and New York with his wife and daughter.

His first novel, The Bridge of Sighs (2003), began a five-book sequence chronicling Cold War Eastern Europe, one book per decade. It was nominated for five awards. The rest of the sequence includes: The Confession, 36 Yalta Boulevard (The Vienna Assignment in the UK), Liberation Movements (The Istanbul Variations in the UK)—this one was nominated for an Edgar Award for best novel of the year—and Victory Square, which was a New York Times editor's choice.

With The Tourist (2009), he began a trilogy of spy tales ...

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