Bruno Menetrier, blogger and contributor to the 20 Minutes Books reading group, recommends “Colère” by Arpád Soltész, published on March 14, 2024 by Éditions Agullo.
His favorite quote:
« Although he himself did not know how to distinguish a Serb from a Croat, he knew full well that if they crossed paths today in a dark alley in Košice, only one would come out at the other end. For Miki, it was still the Yugos who were killing each other massively a few hours’ drive away and it didn’t seem to him that there were any positive heroes in this war. »
Why this book?
- Because this is a very rough Slovak thriller which changes from our usual standards. Arpád Soltész plunges us into the middle of the gang war in a corrupt country where organized crime has rapidly flourished in the East with the wild privatizations of post-communism and where it would now be quite futile to try to distinguish the police from the thieves.
- Because it’s confusing and it’s rather rough, hang on! Nothing to do with our nice western thrillers, our stories to scare you in the evening. With Arpád Soltész, we dive into the heart of the Central European underworld. Drugs, whores, mafias, assassinations and corruption on every level. Violence and vodka on every page, from the mafiosi as well as from the cops.
- Because if the author hardly makes any concessions by our western standards, it is fortunately not devoid of humor. Fierce humor, obviously, and very much in the mood of his book. We know, for example, that in our country the cops always come in pairs: the bad cop and the nice cop. Well in Slovakia, it’s all the same: a tandem with a bad cop and a brutal cop. As for the thugs, they conform to the stereotype, body-built guys whom the author describes as “neckless brutes in designer polyester jogging pants”.
- Parce que si la prose d’Arpád Soltész, acerbe and without embellishments, is often pleasing, the same is not true for its country (member of the EU since 2004): the book was written in 2020 shortly after the assassination in 2018 of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak (a colleague of the author) who was investigating the corruption of power. In 2018, reactions in the country forced President Robert Fico to resign. He has just been re-elected in 2023 and has taken over the reins of the country after having himself escaped an assassination attempt in early 2024!
The essentials in 2 minutes
The plot. The cop Miki didn’t like his young deputy Moly but takes his death crudely disguised as an accident very badly… With the help of a journalist, Miki will set up a diabolical plan which will fuel the gang war and make us discover the mysteries of the corruption that plagues the city.
The characters. Miki the cop. Moly his deputy (everyone has a nickname there!). Schlezi an investigative journalist (like the author). Bandi, the leader of a gang of thugs. In the Šipoš family, the father is a minister. The son replaced dad at the head of the company that keeps the town going.
The places. Košice in the Prešov region in eastern Slovakia, close to the Hungarian border, far from the capital Bratislava. A city the size of Strasbourg to give an idea.
The era. In the 1990s, sometime after the fall of communism.
The author. Arpád Soltész is a journalist from Slovakia known at home for his work on organized crime, a specialist in corruption and mafias in the Balkans… He lives in exile. The results of his investigations which cannot find place in his articles… he turns them into novels.
This book was read with the desire to discover a little more about this little-known Slovakia and what a thriller could give in Central Europe. With Arpád Soltész we will not be disappointed with the trip: it’s breathtaking!
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