Budapest Noir by Vilmos Kondor

1936. The Hungarian prime minister, Gyula Gombos, has just died. Almost the entire newspaper industry, police, and military are gearing up for the funeral and all the organizational details that will go in to honoring a beloved leader.

That includes Zsigmond Gordon. Crime reporter for The Evening, a leading newspaper in Budapest. He’s no fan of politics. Particularly now, considering what’s brewing the neighboring Italy and Germany. While he, too, has been assigned to cover various aspects of the funeral, the death of a young prostitute is more concerning on a number of levels. 

For one, in all likelihood, her death could be lost amongst all the goings on surrounding the funeral. Second, the girl is a teenager. Third, she died without a mark on her. Fourth, when asking around at the police department, he snuck a peak into a police captain’s drawer and found a professionally made naked photo of the girl. Fifth, she was Jewish. And finally, his contact at the coroner’s office tells Gordon that the girl was pregnant.

Juggling his funeral assignments with sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, Gordon personal private investigation goes from the cop who found the body, to the police higher-ups whose lack of interest goes beyond the simple bad timing what with the funeral and all, to the photographer, to the girl’s pimp, to the brothel with which she was connected, to getting severely beaten by this strange man tracking him, to the brothel’s madam - the legendary Red Margo. All of which was just to find an identity.

Doing a little digging on my own, I learned that the book was originally published in Hungarian in 2008 and translated in this 2012 edition. Also learned that author’s name is a pseudonym and that this book was made into a 2017 movie by a Hungarian film company (to mostly mediocre reviews). But the one common feature of reviews of both the book and the movie is that hard boiled noir fans will probably find things to like about either the book or the movie. My best comparison is to maybe Raymond Chandler as it seems to pay homage to that golden era of noir. Not a bad think to be linked to.

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Budapest Noir

I’m a week out from arriving in Budapest for the first time, and I was eager to find a good crime novel that took place there. I found Budapest Noir by Vilmos Kondor, his first novel. It’s a measure of his success with this book and its characters that he followed it up with four more novels. I think a good crime novel should have not only great characters and a gripping plot, but I also like a rich description of the area where the story takes place - a sort of crime-based travelogue. Daniel Silva is a master at that, and I’ve been able to travel through several European cities using Silva as source of information and excitement. The idea is one of historical fiction that is anchored in reality, and Kondor has done the that with Budapest while telling one hell of a story.

Zsigmond Gordon is an investigative reporter for The Evening, and he serves as Kondor’s protagonist. The story takes place in 1936 which predates the Nazi invasion of Hungary but the Nazi influence is significant with regard to the country’s economy and social issues. Gordon has been on Budapest’s crime beat for a while, so he’s well known by the chief inspector, Vladimir Gellert, and most members of the police force. While sitting in Gellert’s office, he notice the pornographic photo of a beautiful woman which Gellert had mistakenly left laying about. Subsequently, as Gordon investigated the death of a prostitute who had been beaten to death, he realized that it was the very same woman he had seen in Gellert’s photo. It was unusual that she was Jewish since Jews of that era rarely became prostitutes, and then he learned that she was the daughter of a wealthy coffee merchant. In the process of trying to unravel the truth, Gordon understood that he could never write about because of the State’s control of the press. Had he tried to publish such a story, he would have been killed. His editors would not have printed it for fear of what might happen to them. In writing about this very dark side of life in Budapest in the 1930s, Kondor has created an impressive social commentary.

But Gordon was tired of the power brokers getting away with murder and he was driven to solve the murder even if it was something he could never write about. This was a quick and fun read. The character development and plot were solid, and the author brought the story to a most satisfying conclusion. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, Endstation Budapest.