Free Dreams of Justice by Dick Adler Page A

European country which sounds very much like Romania—where Steinhauer studied on a Fulbright Fellowship.
    Think of the savage brilliance of J. Robert Janes’s mysteries about World War II France; of the suspenseful erudition of Alan Furst’s thrillers, especially the earlier ones, like “The Polish Officer;” of Philip Kerr’s eye-opening “Berlin Noir” trilogy and Uwe Timm’s heart-breaking “The Invention of the Curried Sausage.” Steinhauer’s debut—the start of a promised series—is right up there on those stellar heights, casting new light on relatively recent history we thought we already knew everything about.
    Emil, an orphan who spent most of the war years skinning seals in Finland, has returned to his native city to live with his grandparents—hard-working, dedicated Communists whose mud-stained Party cards have earned them an apartment. But the men who now rule the country—the so-called “thick Muscovites” who spent the war in Moscow and returned “so plump their own families had trouble recognizing them”—have already begun the process of selling out their people to Russia’s imperialistic vision.
    On his first day at work as a homicide detective, Emil is ignored, insulted and even assaulted by his colleagues, who think he’s a spy for the new political regime. The only case he gets—by default, because nobody else will touch it—is the murder of a once-celebrated songwriter, whose propaganda stirred the masses and earned him rare privilege before he sank into corruption. Gradually, young Brod’s unusual combination of dogged intelligence and loyalty to the best concepts of his country win over the songwriter’s jaded widow and Emil’s fellow detectives—especially a fascinatingly complex Armenian named Terzian, who becomes an important ally as Brod’s search takes him higher and higher up the dangerous ladder of local politics.
    Steinhauer spins out his story in clean and simple prose that gleams with authenticity and captures a uniquely East European spirit. In Berlin to check out a lead, Brod is harangued by an American officer for his refusal to hate the Russians. “That’s what drives me crazy about you people!” shouts the officer. “You’ve got the lowest standards in the world.”
    To which Emil replies, “We’re never disappointed.”
    DEATH OF A NATIONALIST, by Rebecca C. Pawel (Soho)
    Another absolutely riveting first mystery—this time from a 25-year-old who teaches Spanish in a Brooklyn, N.Y. high school—takes us a step further back in history, to Madrid in 1939, when the Fascist-backed Nationalists have already smashed the Republican forces.
    Pawel’s first act of surprising courage is to make her main character not one of the romantic Republicans of folk song and Hemingway story but an officer of their much-hated enemy, the dreaded Guardia Civil. Sgt. Carlos Tejada drifted into the civil guard as a compromise with his father, a wealthy Granada farmer, about a career choice between the law and the military. “This is what I wanted,” he thinks at one point, “to get away from being Senorito Carlos. To just be a member of the Guardia Civil, without all that damn nonsense.” And while he sympathizes with his fellow Nationalists in their hatred for the Reds who would destroy their way of life, Tejeda is smart enough to realize that the Republicans have some right on their side. (He also finds himself attracted to a young teacher of Republican sensibilities, which helps to weaken his resolve.)
    The dead Nationalist of Pawel’s title is a fellow Guardia officer, a boyhood friend of Tejeda’s who was probably killed because of his black market activities rather than his politics. The Guardia, of course, would rather pin the murder on a missing Republican hero, Gonzalo. So Tejada tracks Gonzalo across a starving city littered with the bones and wreckage of recent battles to a conclusion that might remind you of John Ford’s classic film “The Informer”