“A terrific novel” of international crime and intrigue set in post-communist Central Europe (Thomas Perry, Edgar Award–winning author of The Butcher’s Boy).

Jana entered Czechoslovak law enforcement as young woman, and became a wife and mother. But the Communist regime destroyed her husband, and her daughter’s respect for her. The world around her has changed, but she has never stopped being a seeker of justice.

Now, Jana has risen to the rank of commander in the Slovak police force and is based in the capital, Bratislava, a crossroads of central Europe. Cooperating with colleagues across the continent, she is determined to track a master criminal guilty of extortion, murder, kidnapping, and operating a vast human trafficking network.

This investigation takes her from Kiev in Ukraine to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France; from Vienna to Nice during the Carnival, as she searches for a ruthless killer—and the beautiful young Russian woman he is determined to either capture or destroy.