This book is set in the same universe as Europe in Autumn and the other Fractured Europe books, but it’s a separate story and follows different characters. I love the world-building in these books, with their bizarre (but not entirely unrealistic) version of a post-pandemic Europe. I found it especially interesting that while a global pandemic plays a critical role in the previous books, those books were written before Covid but this one was written after. The descriptions here of the rampaging virus and lockdowns and aftermath of the pandemic are taken straight from 2020-21, and though the scenario is heightened in the book, it still hammers home just how dystopian the past few years have been in real life.

That isn’t the focal point of the book, however, which is actually a spy thriller/police procedural involving an international hunt for a missing man. As much as I liked the previous books in this series, I did eventually find them very hard to follow (so many characters with so many aliases visiting so many places!), but this one was much more straightforward—and all the better for it, I think. I tore through it on my own small-scale journey through a corner of Europe and enjoyed it from start to finish. I hope there are more to come!

Further reading…