Author(s): Alice Spigelman

Crime

Reviewed by Bookoccino owner, Raymond Bonner

A suspense-filled probing of the past, a past filled with Nazis and Communists, from the precipice of the present.  How do we deal with the past, punish the perpetrators, or bury it so we can move on? A vivid story-teller, Spigelman knows whereof she writes, from architecture to politics, from Sydney to Budapest.

The Budapest Job is a fast-paced thriller that builds to a dramatic revelation. A young Australian architect arrives in Budapest in 1989 on a project, the year Communism is collapsing. He becomes embroiled in a secret police operation amidst the political turmoil of the times as he tries to track down the person who murdered his father in 1953 during the Stalinist years. When he makes the shocking discovery of the perpetrator's identity he must decide whether to take revenge or let let justice be delivered. "A thrilling and chilling book about how the past is never passed. Innocent eyes open at discovering betrayal and collaboration when a communist state collapses - a fine novel that is all too true to life." Geoffrey Robertson QC (human rights barrister, academic, author and broadcaster) "Mysterious, thrilling and dramatic. The Budapest Job is an extraordinary book, a skilful and fast moving, sometimes frightening evocation of the agonies of Hungary under Stalinism and still today." William Shawcross (writer, journalist, broadcaster, author of The Queen Mother, Allies, Queen and Country, Murdoch, The Shah's Last Ride, and many more)