A dead girl, dressed only in light lingerie, is discovered in a private garden. The circumstances seem to point towards a sexually motivated murder.

Crime/Detective

Eccentric commissioner Holina, who trusts his police intuition as well as the advice of his former love, the psychologist and astrologist Sabina, tries to infiltrate as deep as possible into the circle of people around the murdered Vietnamese girl. His investigation first leads to Prague’s SAPA Vietnamese marketplace (nicknamed Little Hanoi), but he soon discovers that there is much more at stake. Lightly Dressed Girls is the second book by Iva Procházková about commissioner Holina from Prague’s Murder Division, following Man at the Bottom. Procházková’s detective stories have also been turned into a popular series for Czech Television.

Iva Procházková (1953) is a novelist and scriptwriter, a respected author of literature for children and young adults as well as novels for adults and plays. She spent her childhood in Prague. After graduating from the Jan Neruda Grammar School, she was unable to continue studying for political reasons. She had a number of different jobs: for example, working as a cook and a cleaner. In 1983 she emigrated with her husband (the director Ivan Pokorný) and children to Austria. She spent eleven years in exile there and then in Germany. She wrote plays and books, primarily for children and young adults. She writes in Czech and German. Some of her books have been awarded prestigious literary prizes in the Czech Republic and Germany and translated into many languages.