Showing District VIII by Adam LeBor

Life's tough for a Gypsy cop in Budapest. The cops don't trust you because you're a Gypsy. Your fellow Gypsies, even your own family, shun you because you're a cop.

The dead, however, don't care. So when Balthazar Kovacs, a detective in the city's murder squad, gets a mysterious message on his phone from a blocked number, he gulps down the rest of his morning coffee, grabs his police ID and goes to work. The message has two parts: a photograph and an address. The photograph shows a man lying on his back with his eyes open, half-covered by a blue plastic sheet. The address is 26, Republic Square, the former Communist Party headquarters and once the most feared building in the country. But when Kovacs arrives at Republic Square, the body has gone...

Kovacs' investigation will take him deep into Budapest's shadows, an underworld visitors never get to see: the gritty back alleys of District VIII; the people smuggling networks around Keleti Station; the endemic corruption of a country still haunted by the ghosts of history. And when the leads point to the involvement of his brother Gaspar, the city's most powerful pimp, Kovacs will be forced to choose between the law and family loyalty.