Crooked Maid
Shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize 2013
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'Vyleta writes with the sharp, brutal clarity of cinematic freeze frames … Noir meets Gothic – a thrilling tale of war crimes, family secrets, murder and blackmail' Independent
'The atmosphere of postwar Europe, still seething with animosity, is wonderfully evoked and the tangled plot is thrilling' The Times
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The Second World War is over – and yet it lives on. As the initial phase of denazification draws to a close, people across Vienna begin to rebuild their lives amidst the rubble. Anna Beer returns to the city she fled years earlier upon discovering her husband’s infidelity. She has come back to find him and, perhaps, to forgive him.
Travelling on the same train is eighteen-year-old Robert Seidel, a schoolboy summoned home to his stepfather’s sickbed and the secrets of his family’s past. As Anna and Robert navigate an unrecognizable city, beneath the bombed-out ruins a ghost of a man, wrapped in a red scarf, battles demons from his past and hides from a future that is deeply uncertain for all.
Dan Vyleta is the son of Czech refugees who emigrated to Germany in the late 1960s. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. His first novel, Pavel & I, gathered immediate international acclaim and was translated into eight languages. His second novel, The Quiet Twin, was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. The Crooked Maid was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the 2014 J.I. Segal Award.
www.danvyleta.com