Translated from Hungarian by John Batki
Critics have hailed Péter Lengyel's philosophical masterwork that also entertains as a multi-layered detective story spanning Europe's history right up to the present. The novel centres on two crimes, one a meticulously planned diamond theft, the other an unexpected crime of passion. Detectives and criminals engage in a battle of wits across turn-of-the-20th century Europe from Odessa to Budapest. Cobblestone is above all a novel of the city, and especially of Budapest, the bustling heart of Europe before World War I: its smells and sounds, its nightlife and underworld, its burghers, shopkeepers and prostitutes. We become immersed in time and place -- the 1896 Millennium celebrations, the Stalinist 1950s, and today's moral and social uncertainties.
525 pages Paperback