THE ERINYES
Erynie
RIGHTS SOLD:Urbino (Ukraine)
THE ERINYES by Marek Krajewski
Report by Danusia Stok
Marek Krajewski may already be familiar to the English reader from his cycle of Mock novels set in Breslau. In his new cycle of thrillers Poland’s bestselling crime writer introduces us to Commissioner Edward Popielski and locates the action in another city whose the national destiny changed dramatically with the Second World War - Lwów. As Poland’s borders moved westwards, Breslau was handed over to the Poles and became Wrocław; Lwów, on the other hand, was taken from Poland and given over to the Ukraine. Both cities, therefore, are suffused with a specific atmosphere, an unsettled mélange of minorities. Krajewski draws us into these worlds with macabre crimes. The Erinyes follows The Minotaur in his Lwów series.
The body of three-year-old Henio Pytko is found by a Jewish pharmacist in his lavatory. Covered with thirty stab wounds and slashes of the knife, bones crushed and disjointed, the boy’s corpse is strangely clean and free of blood . . .
The main section of The Erinyes (which follows the prologue) starts word for word like The Minotaur. This appears puzzling - how can two different novels begin with exactly the same text. Surely this is not a massive printing or editorial error? Soon enough we see where Krajewski is leading us. In the first book, the discovery of the brutal murder of Henio Pytko described in the initial pages spurs a flashback. We go back in chronology as Inspector Edward Popielski explains to his cousin why he does not want to take on the case. In The Erinyes, the same event takes us forward. The inspector is provoked to investigate the case. It will be, he says, his very last case; he will undertake it but only on one condition – that he be permitted to collaborate with Kiczałes, the king of Lwów’s underworld. He is given permission, and promises Kiczałes a year’s reprieve for himself and his men, in return for the delivery of Pytko’s murderer – alive.
As the inspector pursues his investigation – doomed to frustration and a run of dead-ends, Krajewski evokes the specific spirit of a town both beautiful and complex where Poles live alongside Ukrainians and Rusins, where the Jewish element is strong and not always favoured, where criminals live by their own code of honour.
Like Eberhard Mock, Edward Popielski is a forceful character, one not easily forgotten. There are further similarities. Both men studied the Classics – Latin and Greek; both enjoy chess and have a passion for women, drink and good food; and both are brutal. Yet despite his ruthlessness, his fury and quick ability to mete out justice by his own hand, Popielski has vulnerability and a certain softness. He suffers from epilepsy. He has a daughter and eighteen-month-old grandson on whom he dotes. These characteristics make him, perhaps, a touch more sympathetic than his Breslau counterpart (with whom, incidentally, he worked on the case of the Minotaur). It is precisely this grandson, Jerzyk, who all the more ignites the police officer’s fury and determination to track down little Pytko’s killer.
Without losing any of the action’s momentum or suspense, Krajewski develops and describes not only Popielski’s character but also that of his cousin, Leokadia, with whom he has shared an apartment for many years, and of pathologist Iwan Pidhirny. Other characters, though not so fully described, are no less vivid – alongside a comment here and there their actions speak for themselves.
The structure of the novel is in itself interesting; Krajewski, as usual, plays with chronology. The main bulk of the narrative is held within a double parenthesis of prologues and epilogues. The first place and date we are given are Wrocław 2008. Here our curiosity is awakened. The next date is 1949, Wrocław again. Then come the main section of the book and a jump to Lwów - but we go back in time to 1939. The epilogues bring up back in place and time to the prologues.
The part which takes place in Lwów is itself divided into three; not, however, chronologically – events now run their course. These three sections come as the three Erinyes. [The Erinyes, in Greek mythology, were the “deities of vengeance or supernatural personifications of the anger of the dead” (Wikipedia). The three main Erinyes were Alecto – unceasing anger; Megaera – the jealous one; and Tisiphone – avenging murder. Their equivalents in Roman mythology were the Furies]. Alecto-anger, Megaera-jealousy and Tisiphone-avenging murder are the driving forces of Krajewski’s action.
The Erinyes is a book which could well find its niche on the English-speaking market. Although the percentage of work published in translation in the U.K. is still considerably lower than in many other countries, we have seen a number of original and interesting investigators from Scandinavia and Western Europe but very few from Central or Eastern Europe. Popielski would be a rich addition. Different from the gloomy, soulful and depressed inspectors who have recently filled the market, he is fiery, passionate, no less complex but more direct. His world, too, is different and offers the reader a whiff of the exotic – both geographically and historically. A brief forward or introduction would be useful to explain the geo-political situation of Lwów and Wrocław at the time.
With the influx of emigrants arriving from Central and Eastern Europe, a book such as this would give the English reader an insight into this other world from which these new neighbours come.
The Erinyes is a work well worth offering the English-speaking public.
(Danusia Stok)
Marek Krajewski (b. 1966) was for many years a classics lecturer at the University of Wroclaw but a few years ago he quit lecturing in favour of writing literary thrillers. He is the author of a best-selling series of novels featuring Kriminalabtailung Direktor Eberhard Mock and inspector Edward Popielski. Krajewski’s debut Śmierć w Breslau (Death in Breslau) appeared in 1999. This one and the subsequent novels from the Breslau series have been published in 12 countries and the rights to the series have been sold to 18 countries. Marek Krajewski’s major awards include: Polityka’s Passport, an award given to the author of the best literary achievement in a certain year, the High Calibre Award for the best crime novel of the year and the Wroclaw Mayor Award. He lives in Wroclaw and teaches creative writing in Krakow.
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