The story begins in 1989 on the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia. The investigation into a young woman's disappearance falters as Yugoslavia plunges into a fratricidal war. Another three decades will pass before the truth is revealed. Inspector Gorki Šain, haunted by his failure to unravel the case the first time, returns to solve the crime in 2017.A PRIZE WINNER. The novel was awarded the Ksaver Šandor Gjalski Prize for best Croatian novel in 2018, and the Fric Prize for best Croatian fiction in 2019. In France in 2022 it won theGrand prix de la literature policière, previously awarded to such writers as Mary Higgins Clark and Michael Connelly, the Prix Mystère de la critique, and the Prix Le Point. SUSPENSE FICTION AS A GATEWAY TO HISTORY. Like Graham Greene's The Third Man, Martin Cruz Smith's Stalin's Ghost or Damascus Station by David McCloskey,an evocation of the sordid aftermath of violent regime change in authoritarian countries.We are barely two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, only "an instant" before the shift from one world to another, the shift toward tragedy for a country ultimately forged by war.