Inspektor Andreas i praskie dossier

by Marshall Browne, Śmierzchalska Danuta (Translator)

Praskie dossier

Jako wybitny śledczy z Europolu Anders – bohater rzymskiej policji – zostaje wysłany do Pragi, by odnaleźć tajemnicze, nieopublikowane dossier, które podobno zawiera porażające oskarżenia wobec prominentnych czeskich liderów biznesu. Co kryje się za zagadkowymi groźbami autora dossier, który, na wzór słynnej Kafkowskiej postaci, nazywa siebie „Józefem K”? Tropy wiodą do przeszłości, do Praskiej Wiosny 1968 roku oraz StB – komunistycznej służby bezpieczeństwa – i jej ofiar. Czy Anders, znalazłszy się między siłami represji a zemstą, zdoła powstrzyma przemoc, zanim sam stanie się ofiarą?

320 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Browne was an international banker - he racked up 37 years with NAB - and one of his forebears was a founder of Australia's first bank. But the former paratrooper who once hankered for a spell in the French foreign legion loved writing and had three books published in Britain in the early '80s when writing was still ''an occasional Sunday activity''. Then came a couple of historical novels about Melbourne in the late 19th century, The Gilded Cage and The Burnt City. It was with The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders, published in 1999 and featuring his one-legged policeman investigating the murder of a magistrate who was himself investigating the killing of an anti-Mafia judge, that he really struck a chord with readers. It won the Ned Kelly award for a first crime novel and was shortlisted in the 2002 Los Angeles Times book awards. Browne then turned his attention to Nazi Germany, writing three novels starring Franz Schmidt, an auditor, as their hero. Schmidt has only one eye, and Browne told Bookmarks he was interested in damaged heroes. He included Hideo Aoki, the hero of his 2006 novel, Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn, a disgraced Japanese policeman intact physically but not psychologically. Browne wrote three novels about Anders, and Australian Scholarly Press, which published The Gilded Cage in 1996, will bring out the fourth later this year. The book was at the editing stage when Browne died. But only 10 days earlier he had a bookshop signing for The Sabre and the Shawl, the novella published by ASP last month that The Age review described as ''a romantic evocation of the historical time and place, with great characterisation and an exploration of the creative process''. Publisher Nick Walker said Browne was delighted by the queue of people who bought books but exhausted by the time he got home. When people assembled for a celebratory drink he told them in his characteristic self-deprecating way, with a smile on his face, that they were looking at the ghost of Marshall Browne.



Series:
* Inspector Anders
* The Melbourne Trilogy
* Frank Scmidt

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

INSPECTOR ANDERS AND THE PRAGUE DOSSIER is a very bittersweet book, published after author Marshall Browne's death (the book was being edited at the time that Browne died). The fourth Inspector Anders novel, it brings to an end an unsung gem of a series of Australian Crime Fiction books.

Set in Europe, the central character - Anders is an investigator with Europol. In the first book, THE WOODEN LEG OF INSPECTOR ANDERS, Anders is based in Italy, a hero of the Rome Police Force, who lost his leg in a terrorist attack, struggling with the after-effects of the bombing. The second book, INSPECTOR ANDERS AND THE SHIP OF FOOLS, has Anders assisting the French police because of his extensive experience with terrorist groups, and the third book INSPECTOR ANDERS AND THE BLOOD VENDETTA sees him back in Italy, in Milan this time, with a case that could be terrorism based, with Mafia involvement.

The final novel sees him undertake one last job, this time in Prague, in search of an unpublished dossier said to detail explosive allegations against prominent Czech business leaders. Set in 2006, clues to the dossier go back to 1968 and the communist secret police, with the current day events posing a great personal threat to Anders himself.

One of the things that you have to keep in mind when reading this series is that Anders is a profoundly damaged man - not just with the loss of his leg, but the PTSD like symptoms he continues to suffer all the way through the books. He's battle-weary, almost to the point of down-trodden, he's determined but seemingly depressed, he's quiet, thoughtful and in every action on the page you can feel his self-doubt and trepidation. He also lives with the daily threat of Mafia repercussions as a result of events in the third novel. He's always had tendencies towards being a loner, and whilst in this outing, there is at least one senior police officer with integrity on his side, his instincts have always been to hold his thoughts, and actions close to his own chest. To stand alone, but never out there.

Marshall Browne created something very compelling in the Inspector Anders series. His central character, in particular, is complex and complicated, damaged and deeply traumatised. He's compelling and somebody for whom empathy is easily felt. The settings for all the novels are also beautifully understated and elegantly sketched. There's real balance and finesse in the way that the places reflect the mood, support the action, give a sense of reality to events. The plots were also clever, compelling and quite believable, and there was always a sense that Anders may just be able to pull himself back for one more case, to stand alone and fight one more time. Except now we are all too aware that INSPECTOR ANDERS AND THE PRAGUE DOSSIER is where we all must part company. We'll miss him, as we will Marshall Browne's quiet, understated talent.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/revi...

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first of the Inspector Anders series that I read - in fact it is the first Marshall Browne i had tackled.
It may be unfair to judge the series on the last novel, without having read the first three. Be that as it may, I found this novel confused. The central character changes in the middle of the novel and the imagery is all over the place. Similes and metaphors that would work in an Australian context, suddenly appearing in rain swept Prague.
But then again, I did finish the novel and it did hold my interest to the end.

[Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the fourth and final book in the author's outstanding Inspector Anders series. As Europol's most experienced investigator, Anders is sent to Prague in 2006 to locate a secret dossier that may contain highly sensitive information concerning the activities of the Czech secret police during the Cold War. Corrupt Czech high-level politicians, government officials with the Interior Ministry and a wealthy local tycoon are doing everything they can to prevent Anders from being successful despite the occurrence of an increasing number of murders possibly linked to this dossier. Most of these murders involved death by defenestration, in other words being thrown out of an upper-story window similar to how the Czech politician Jan Masaryk was killed in 1948. Anders needs to recruit a circle of new allies in Prague to help him find both the dossier and those responsible for the murders without himself becoming a victim. Fortunately, a senior police officer with some integrity becomes one of them. While in Prague, Anders also has to keep in mind that the Italian mafia has sworn to assassinate him. Marshall Browne is a master storyteller who excels at characterization, authentic settings and compelling plots. In addition to his Inspector Anders novels, the author has also written two outstanding thrillers set in Nazi Germany, a superb detective novel set in Japan, and three historical novels set in Melbourne. For the time being, Inspector Anders and the Prague Dossier is only available in Australia.

[Natka H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Przyjemny, lekki kryminał, inny niż wszystkie. Wciąż odmóżdżacz, choć zupełnie nie w typowym stylu kryminałów pisanych na jedno kopyto pod tytułem "zabili go i uciekł" ;)

Ciekawy pomysł na fabułę osadzoną w postkomunistycznej Pradze, która swe korzenie ma właśnie w mrocznych czasach czeskiego komunizmu. Mnóstwo zwrotów akcji i zaskoczeń, które wywołują u czytelnika wrażenie, że nigdy nie poznamy prawdy ani nie odnajdziemy sprawcy, a sam autor mistrzowsko kreuje napięcie słowami i opisami.

Co ciekawe, autor jest rodowitym Australijczykiem, a opisuje Pragę, Czechów i ich życie, jakby sam się tam urodził. W dodatku niezwykle trafnie przedstawia zarówno zwykłą codzienność szarych zjadaczy chleba, jak i wysoko postawionych u władzy, którzy nieradzko mają przeszłość splugawioną swoimi czynami z czasów jeszcze sprzed upadku komunizmu.

Jest to tylko jedna część z serii książek o Inspektorze Andersie i sprawach przez niego rozwiązywanych, aczkolwiek nie przeszkadza to w wyrywkowym czytaniu tomów. Z tego co zauważyłam, z poprzednich części pojawiają się tylko wątki dotyczace życia prywatnego inspektora, a w zasadzie to tylko pobieżnie się o nich wspomina.
Chociaż z drugiej strony... Anders stale się czegoś obawia, przed praską aferą planował nawet kompletnie się wycofać i uciec gdzieś, gdzie nikt go nie znajdzie... Czuję dość dużą potrzebę poznania genezy tych obaw i jego planów. Miło byłoby też wiedzieć czy ostatecznie mu się udało wycofać z trudnej, wymagającej i jakże niebezpiecznej pracy...

Nie pozostaje nic innego, jak tylko sięgnąć po inne tomy i nie sądzę, bym miała się zawieść :)

[Justine Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it was very hard to put down. It was a bit slower in the beginning but then got to a point where I couldn't wait to see what happened next. I've read the three other Anders books and enjoyed them very much. A great read.