The Heart of Hell

The third installment in Mattich's superb Marko della Torre series picks up where Killing Pilgrim ended, with the discovery of CIA agent Rebecca Vees's body in the Adriatic. It's autumn 1991. Croatia declares its independence from the remains of Yugoslavia, and civil war begins. In the turmoil, former secret policeman Marko finds himself in a tight spot. Having been the last person to see Vees alive, he is being squeezed by his Belgrade bosses and shadowy U.S. operatives into tracking down the prime suspect, crooked cop Julius Strumbic, who's also Marko's friend. What follows is a Balkan odyssey, with Marko trying to survive a blood-drenched war while never knowing exactly whom to trust. This is a classic piece of hard-boiled wartime fiction. The requisite gallows humor becomes more fatalistic as the horror of war becomes real, yet as in all of the della Torre books, there are moments of utter hilarity, such as a telephone conversation between Strumbic and his long-suffering wife. Each installment in Mattich's series is like a straight shot of slivovitz to the senses, and this one is especially fiery. Agent: Hilary McMahon, Westwood Creative Artists. (May)