Miloš Urban

Lord Mord

Trans. Gerald Turner
Lord Mord Lord Mord
Peter Owen, 2013, 300 pp
Language: English
Prose

From Miloš Urban, author of international bestseller The Seven Churches, comes a new thriller. Hapsburg Prague at the end of the nineteenth century seethes with tension between Czechs seeking independence and the German-speaking population who wield the power. Caught between both are the Jews. Josefov, the Jewish Quarter, is being modernized, causing large-scale destruction of the medieval city. Moving through this maelstrom is the drug-addicted, absinthe-drinking, tubercular Adi, Count Arco, aka Lord Mord, a Bohemian throwback who dotes on the ancient buildings and courtyards of the old town. Buying a house in Josefov, he refuses to move, going into battle with the faceless bureaucrats at the Town Hall who want the residents evicted. Meanwhile, the nighttime alleyways are haunted by a mythological monster nicknamed Kleinfleisch. Prostitutes are being murdered, and when Lord Mord’s mistress becomes a victim, he finds himself sucked into wider events that wrench him out of his Bohemian idyll. A dizzying cocktail of mystery, murder and Gothic romance, Lord Mord is more than worthy of an author who has been dubbed ‘the dark knight of Czech literature’.

Information about the original Czech edition

Lord Mord

Other selected published translations (3)

Lord Mord Spanish

Mord in der Josefstadt German

Lord Mord Polish

Peter Owen, 2013, 300 pp
Language: English