Prose

What can you do if by all indications one of the two people you have most trusted is cynically lying to you and you don’t know which one? All you can do is mobilize all your senses and try to work it out by your wits and instinct, though this might mean the newly discovered truth turns out to again be nothing but a lie and raises further suspicions, like the growing threat of an avalanche that is about to fall who knows where…

This novel was inspired by the stalemate at the time over investigations into which of the new politicians in the recently liberated state had been a State Security secret agent under the old totalitarian regime. Poet Petra Márová, a staunch Roman Catholic, who never gave way to the old regime and had to pay for it, suddenly stands between the two men she loved. They are now accusing each other of providing substantial services to the previous regime. She decides to find out at any cost who is telling the truth and who is deceiving her, until she finds herself in danger of being the avalanche victim herself.

This genre, which even in modern Czech is called a “thriller”, has no lack of thrills that increase right up to the final pages. Added to which are parallel plots that bring spectres from the ghastly past into the new era of raised hopes.