Budapest Noir

Last updated
Budapest Noir
Kondor budapest noir american cover.jpg
Budapest Noir first-edition cover
Author Vilmos Kondor
Original titleBudapest Noir
TranslatorPaul Olchvary
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesBudapest Noir
SubjectHungary in the 1930s
Genre Mystery fiction, noir
Publisher HarperCollins
Publication date
February 2012
Media typePrint paperback
Pages304 (first edition)
ISBN 0-061-85939-7
813/.5/4
LC Class PH3382.21.O555B8313 2012

Budapest Noir is the first Hungarian noir written by Vilmos Kondor and published by HarperCollins in Hungary in February 2012. The novel is about a crime journalist Zsigmond Gordon, who wants to find the killer of a Jewish girl found dead in Budapest in 1936, and besides the criminal element offers social commentary, political and historical background of Hungary flirting with fascism.

Contents

Plot introduction

Budapest, October 1936. Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös is dead. The body of a young Jewish girl is found in a Terézváros doorway. Zsigmond Gordon, a criminal journalist for The Est newspaper, arrives on the scene soon afterwards and starts asking questions, but everywhere seems to run into a brick wall. The clues lead him upwards to the highest echelons of society and downwards to the lowest depths of misery and poverty. Gordon refuses to give up, keeps asking his questions, and the more they want to frighten him off, the more determined he becomes. He does not know whom to trust, and does not know and does not care how many people's interests he is harming. He just wants to find the girl's killer, because, by the look of things, he is the only one who cares.

Critical reception

Several reviewers hailed Budapest Noir as the first noir novel written in Hungarian.

"The search [for a Hungarian crime thriller] is at an end: Vilmos Kondor’s novel is a Hungarian crime thriller and then some, one of the harder variety, in the spirit of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, but with Hungarian characters and set in the Hungarian capital in the period before World War II." Péter I. Rácz in

Steven Saylor writes that the novel fulfills its promise:

"Budapest Noir more than fulfills the expectations piqued by its title. With intrepid news reporter Zsigmond Gordon as our guide, the novel takes us down the mean streets of one of Europe's most fascinating cities during one of its darkest chapters."

Sequels

Budapest Noir is the first novel in the series of five. It was followed by Bűnös Budapest (Budapest Sin), A budapesti kém (The Budapest Spy), Budapest romokban (Budapest in Ruins) and in 2012 the final installment titled Budapest novemberben (Budapest in November').

Publication history

Film adaptation

The rights for the movie were sold before the book was published, and the film was released in 2017 [1]

Foreign editions

As of August 1, 2012, 'Budapest Noir' has been published by

Other similar stories

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crime fiction</span> Genre of fiction focusing on crime

Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has several subgenres, including detective fiction, courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. Most crime drama focuses on crime investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernő Gerő</span> Hungarian communist politician (1898–1980)

Ernő Gerő was a Hungarian Communist leader in the period after World War II and briefly in 1956 the most powerful man in Hungary as the leader of its ruling communist party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vilmos Zsigmond</span> Hungarian-American cinematographer

Vilmos ZsigmondASC was a Hungarian-American cinematographer. His work in cinematography helped shape the look of American movies in the 1970s, making him one of the leading figures in the American New Wave movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Pyper</span> Canadian writer

Andrew Pyper is a Canadian author.

<i>They Came to Baghdad</i> 1951 adventure novel by Agatha Christie

They Came to Baghdad is an adventure novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 5 March 1951 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at eight shillings and sixpence (8/6) and the US edition at $2.50.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oktogon (intersection)</span>

Oktogon is one of Pest's major intersections, located at the junction of the Grand Boulevard and Andrássy Avenue in Budapest, Hungary. This junction, one of the city's most important, is named for its octagonal shape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kodály körönd</span>

Kodály körönd is a circus in Budapest, Hungary, at the intersection of Andrássy Avenue and Felsőerdősor u., with beautifully painted old buildings and statues of four of Hungary's great heroes in each corner. It is also a station on the yellow M1 line of the Budapest Metro. The four heroes are:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Williams (American author)</span> American author (1909–1975)

Charles K. Williams was an American author of crime fiction. He is regarded by some critics as one of the finest suspense novelists of the 1950s and 1960s. His 1951 debut, the paperback novel Hill Girl, sold more than a million copies. A dozen of his books have been adapted for movies, most popularly Dead Calm and The Hot Spot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antal Kocsis</span> Hungarian boxer

Antal Kocsis was a Hungarian boxer who competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics. In 1928 he won the gold medal in the flyweight class after winning the final against Armand Apell of France. He was born in Budapest-Kispest and died in Titusville, United States. His character plays a small but memorable role in Vilmos Kondor's 2012 novel Budapest Noir.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vilmos Kondor</span>

Vilmos Kondor is the name of a successful Hungarian author. He's been dubbed as "the creator of Hungarian crime fiction".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrian McKinty</span> Irish crime novelist and critic

Adrian McKinty is a Northern Irish writer of crime and mystery novels and young adult fiction, best known for his 2020 award-winning thriller, The Chain, and the Sean Duffy novels set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. He is a winner of the Edgar Award, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, the Macavity Award, the Ned Kelly Award, the Barry Award, the Audie Award, the Anthony Award and the International Thriller Writers Award. He has been shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Stone</span> British writer

Sam Stone is the horror and fantasy pen name for British multi-award winning Thriller novellist and screenwriter Samantha Lee Howe. She is best known for her USA Today! best selling novel The Stranger In Our Bed published by HarperCollins imprint One More Chapter. This novel has recently been made into a film by production company Buffalo Dragon, The film, directed by Giles Alderson and starring Samantha Bond, Emily Berrington, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Joseph Marcell, Nina Wadia, Bart Edwards and Terri Dwyer, was released on 1 July 2022 on Showtime Networks. Samantha has since sold three more books to HarperCollins One More Chapter and all three were published in 2021 as The House of Killers Trilogy which consists of The House of Killers Book 1, Kill or Die Book 2, and Kill A Spy Book 3.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Kessler (author)</span> English author

David Kessler is an English author of mystery novels and thrillers. The plots of his novels often involve people falsely accused of crimes, legal battles, DNA, computer hacking and police investigations and are characterised by multiple plot twists and last-minute surprises. With the exception of A Fool for a Client, his early novels were set in Britain. His new series of books is set in the Bay Area of California and centres on a series of recurring characters including the lawyer Alex Sedaka and his paralegal Juanita Cortez. His latest series, published under the pseudonym "Adam Palmer", introduces the character of Daniel Klein, an expert on ancient Semitic languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Megan Abbott</span> American writer (born 1971)

Megan Abbott is an American author of crime fiction and of non-fiction analyses of hardboiled crime fiction. Her novels and short stories have drawn from and re-worked classic subgenres of crime writing from a female perspective. She is also an American writer and producer of television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Gore</span> American novelist

Steven Gore is an American thriller writer and author of the Graham Gage and Harlan Donnally series published by HarperCollins. Gore is a former private investigator in the San Francisco Bay Area whose novels draw on his investigations of murder, fraud, money laundering, organized crime, political corruption, and drug, sex, and arms trafficking in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

<i>Before I Go to Sleep</i> 2011 novel by S. J. Watson

Before I Go to Sleep is the first novel by S. J. Watson, published in the spring of 2011. It became both a Sunday Times and The New York Times bestseller and has been translated into over 40 languages, and has become a bestseller in France, Canada, Bulgaria and the Netherlands. It reached number 7 on the US bestseller list, the highest position for a debut novel by a British author since J. K. Rowling. The New York Times described the author as an "out-of-nowhere literary sensation". He wrote the novel between shifts whilst working as a National Health Service (NHS) audiologist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. Barri Flowers</span> American novelist

Ronald Barri Flowers is an American writer of mystery novels and non-fiction books, as well as a criminologist. He lives in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Long Shadow, The Long Shadow or Long Shadows may refer to:

<i>Criminal Shadows: Inside the Mind of the Serial Killer</i> 1994 book by David V. Canter

Criminal Shadows: Inside the Mind of the Serial Killer is a 1994 book written by English professor of psychology, David V. Canter. It was the winner of two literary awards: the Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction (1994) and the Anthony Award for Best True Crime (1995).

Kimberley Chambers is an English novelist who lives in Essex. She has published sixteen crime novels, including the Mitchells & O'Haras and Butlers series, which are mainly set in Essex or East London. She writes gritty, crime family sagas, laced with her trademark humour, most often from the perspective of the villain. Three of her novels – Payback, Tainted Love and Life of Crime - have been Sunday Times Number One bestsellers.

References

  1. "Budapest Noir (2017) - IMDb".