Traffyck

September 7, 2009
The gut-wrenching ghost of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster hangs over Beres's depressing sequel to Chernobyl Murders
. Former stripper Mariya Nemeth hires Chicago PI Lazlo Horvath after her husband of one month, Viktor Patolichev, dies in the torching of his adult video store. Did Victor set fire to the store for the insurance money, or was the arson related to Viktor's past involvement in human trafficking? Mariya also seeks help from Kiev PI Janos Nagy, Lazlo's protégé, with whom she develops a romantic relationship. Two masked men later brutalize Mariya, a not so subtle warning that the investigation must stop. Lazlo, Mariya and Janos eventually find answers in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl. Readers should be prepared for some overheated prose (e.g., “the video store blazing.... The fire so hot when her father cut slabs of bacon to put on a stick and shove into the flames and drip blackened grease onto rye bread for aunts, uncles, and cousins”).

September 15, 2009
This dark, brutal sequel to The Chernobyl Murders (2008) is set in modern-day Ukraine. Kiev-based PI Janos Nagy (aka the Gypsy) cant help poking his nose into matters best left alone; this time hes investigating links between the church, high-placed Ukrainian officials, child pornographers, and human traffickers. It starts with a woman named Mariya, who hires Nagy to investigate her husbands death (his adult-video store burned to the ground with him inside). Beres gets the bleak and threatening atmosphere just right, from the purposefully vague phone calls designed to confuse any listeners to the terror and confusion felt by both Mariya and the missing children. The fast-paced plot is accelerated by multiple points of view: Mariya, Janos, his old mentor in Chicago, traffickers, the missing children, pornographers, and the vicious killers out for revenge. This is a fine thriller, sure to appeal to fans of Brent Ghelfis Volks Game (2007) and Volks Shadow (2008).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)