In Budapest the young Hungarian Péter Járai seeks revenge against the Soviet occupiers that dictate over his country and took his girlfriend Milena from him in 1945. The authorities force him to live a monotonous life on a factory floor because they do not recognise his education. Living an existence almost bereft of human feelings, his life is turned upside-down when revolution finally lets loose in 1956. He meets the equally vengeful, though enigmatic sharpshooter Katalin.

Two others caught up in the heat of the Hungarian Revolution are the Western journalists Jack Goddard and Pascal Deffere, old friends of Péter’s father. After surviving a brutal introduction to the uprising, they go into hiding with Katalin and Péter’s resistance group. This allows them to cover the dramatic events from the inside. From their hide-out in Budapest central library, they document the struggle for freedom and the injustices in the streets. Should their photographic evidence fall into the wrong hands however, they could be used against individuals in the resistance group, like Katalin and Péter. Yet it is precisely the journalists’ proof that might persuade the West to engage itself, through the UN.

The journalists attempt to get through to someone they know in the UN Secretariat, the Dane Povl Bang-Jensen, but things are not as they should be in the corridors of the organization. Nothing happens. In order to fathom out the organization’s paralysis, Bang-Jensen goes beyond his credentials in the Hungarian issue, something that puts Katalin in danger.

Back in Budapest’s ruins, Péter develops strong feelings for Katalin, but at a crucial moment he discovers she is hiding a personal secret. An officer in the secret police has tried to uncover her secret for some time, however. This officer, Tibor Rathe, is a former militiaman from the war, but Péter knows him better as a merciless bully from his schooldays, someone who always covers his tracks.

Events in this book take you from Katalin and Péter’s struggle for freedom in Budapest’s streets via the Hungarian landscape to London, Manchester, Paris and New York. The novel also suggests the fate of real-life Bang-Jensen who engaged himself in the Hungarians’ fight for justice.

Anyone who has visited Budapest will recognize the landmarks in the novel.

Year of publication: 2020.
Editor: W & R.
ISBN: 978-82-690970-1-6.
Pages: 462.