The return of Lieutenant Boruvka

By Josef Škvorecký

Subjects: Slavic philology

Description: From Library Journal Boruvka, the melancholy Prague detective (of the End of Lieutenant Boruvka, LJ 5/1/9 and others), has escaped from the Communist Czechoslovakia to Toronto. There he helps to solve a murder of a beautiful, promiscuous woman, together with her stockbroker brother and his girlfriend, who runs a feminist detective agency. What looks like a simple crime of passion turns into an intricate whodunit, involving Czech spies, Nazi war criminals, hired assassins, would-be aristocrats, and three waves of Czech emigres. This satisfying crime story, the fourth and the best in the Boruvka series, is also a playful, witty, and humorous look at the foibles of the Canadians and the immigrant Czechs and the confrontation of the two cultures. Recommended. - Marie Bednar, Pennsylvania State Univ. Libs., University Park Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.