I know how you feel. You pick up a mystery set in a European country and you have second thoughts. “I can’t pronounce the names,” you say. “I’m not familiar with the cities.” My answer? Who cares if the street, city, or personal names are half a mile long or don’t contain but one vowel? With Genelin’s latest Jana Matinova mystery, you’ll forget all about the confusing names and enjoy an intriguing little mystery while touring some of Europe’s locales. Matinova’s character is caring, witty and her deductive reasoning is very convincing.
Commander Matinova attends a party for a financier politico wannabe and ends up watching the man’s wife get killed. Staying out of the public eye, she parallels the official investigation, always staying a step ahead, but always searching for what she’s not being told. With the help of an enigmatic and precocious teenage street girl, and avoiding several attempts on her own life, Matinova puts together the pieces of a puzzle that has connections to bands of thugs in World War II.
What rounded out this book were the other things occupying Matinova’s life. Besides her major case, she deals with the shooting death of a Gypsy boy and how recollections of her mother’s Communist attitude shape her own thoughts. This is Genelin’s fourth Matinova mystery so fans should be satisfied with another fine novel.

Reviewed by Stephen L. Brayton, author of “Beta” for Suspense Magazine ( )