Books by Miklos Banffy

This fast-paced crime story and lighthearted romantic comedy, set against a backdrop of Mediterranean scenery and fascist menace in Italy and Hungary between the wars, is Miklos Banffy at his best. Now published in English for the first time, translated by Thomas Sneddon.

The short stories in this collection, from the tale of the idle young man dawdlingpleasantly in Venice to the Romanian villager meditating revenge on histormentor, draw on the author's experiences of life, love, sacrifice, betrayal andcourage, and reveal, as a recurring leitmotif, an indomitable will to survive.

Shooting parties in great country houses, turbulent scenes in parliament and the luxury life in Budapest provide the backdrop for this gripping, prescient novel, forming a chilling indictment of upper-class frivolity and political folly, in which good manners cloak indifference and brutality.