“Readers hungry for a fresh crime setting will be enormously satisfied with Michael Genelin’s Jana Matinova novels based in Bratislava, Slovakia, a place relatively unknown to Westerners. . . . Matinova goes head-to-head with a beloved childhood friend whose budding political career is in crash mode because of an affair. . . . The portrayal of life in post-Communist Slovakia is riveting.”— USA Today “[A] gripping novel . . . with a truly original central character. . . . Plan on getting the first Matinova novel, Siren of the Waters , too. You're not going to want to miss an episode.” — The Globe and Mail (Toronto) “Outstanding.”— Booklist Jana and Sofia were best friends when they were schoolmates. Now Jana is a commander in the Slovak police force and Sofia, having made a name as a reformer, is a member of parliament. Jana has fallen in love with an upright government prosecutor and Sofia is carrying on a notorious affair with a suave, married fellow MP. One day Jana finds an enormous diamond gem dangling from a string fixed to the ceiling of the living room of her house. Was it put there as a present? Or, more likely, to entrap her? The answer leads Jana across Europe to unravel a criminal conspiracy involving multiple murders that has entangled her hapless, impulsive friend, Sofia, and which ultimately leads to the criminal mastermind.