'Davidsen writes like an assassin. Brilliant! More, more!' Fay Weldon'One of Denmark's top crime writer' Joan Smith, Sunday TimesLISE CARLSEN, a successful arts journalist trying to smooth over the cracks in a failed marriagePER TOFTLUND, a crack member of Denmark's secret service, a lone wolf: unattached, without a family and fanatically committed to his workVUK, a highly skilled political assassin who has lost everything in the bloody collapse of the former Yugoslavia. As plans are made for a controversial Iranian author to make a rare public appearance in Copenhagen, these three separate and lonely lives suddenly find themselves on a collision course. Trapped in a world of secret deals and private passions, organized crime and uncontrolled media frenzy, Lise, Per and Vuk struggle to confront a tainted past, a compromised present and an extremely uncertain future. One man protects an author, while another signs up for murder. From its terse beginnings to its unnerving, blood-splattered climax, Leif Davidsen has written a taut political thriller that will not only entertain and enlighten but chill to the bone. Translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland