The Serbian Dane

Description

'Davidsen writes like an assassin. Brilliant! More, more!' Fay Weldon 'One of Denmark's top crime writer' Joan Smith, Sunday Times LISE CARLSEN, a successful arts journalist trying to smooth over the cracks in a failed marriage PER TOFTLUND, a crack member of Denmark's secret service, a lone wolf: unattached, without a family and fanatically committed to his work VUK, a highly skilled political assassin who has lost everything in the bloody collapse of the former Yugoslavia. As plans are made for a controversial Iranian author to make a rare public appearance in Copenhagen, these three separate and lonely lives suddenly find themselves on a collision course. Trapped in a world of secret deals and private passions, organized crime and uncontrolled media frenzy, Lise, Per and Vuk struggle to confront a tainted past, a compromised present and an extremely uncertain future. One man protects an author, while another signs up for murder. From its terse beginnings to its unnerving, blood-splattered climax, Leif Davidsen has written a taut political thriller that will not only entertain and enlighten but chill to the bone. Translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland

Leif Davidsen is a Danish author who worked as a journalist and then turned to become a full time writer. As a journalist, he was stationed in Spain and Russia before returning to become chief editor of Danmarks Radio's foreign news desk. He won the Danish booksellers Golden Laurel Award in 1991 for his novel The Last Spy.

One of Denmark's top crime writers, Davidsen puts a cop and a journalist against the assassin, throwing them together in an unexpected relationship as they try to outwit the killer. This is the dark side of globalisation, in which ideology and greed forge a grim international alliance against democracy and freedom of speech -- Joan Smith * Sunday Times * Resonates because one can't dismiss its frightening truth -- Paul Binding * Independent * I believed every word of it - the danger, the action, the politics of power and fear. Davidsen writes like an assassin. Brilliant! More, more! -- Fay Weldon Davidsen's taut, disciplined thriller pits professional assassin Vuk, a Serbian raised in Denmark, against Detective Insp. Per Toftlund -- Publishers Weekly