Lord Mord

Milos Urban

From Miloš Urban, author of international bestseller The Seven Churches, comes a new thriller. Hapsburg Prague at the end of the nineteenth century seethes with tension between Czechs seeking independence and the German-speaking population who wield the power. Caught between both are the Jews. Josefov, the Jewish Quarter, is being modernized, causing large-scale destruction of the medieval city. Moving through this maelstrom is the drug-addicted, absinthe-drinking, tubercular Adi, Count Arco, aka Lord Mord, a Bohemian throwback who dotes on the ancient buildings and courtyards of the old town. Buying a house in Josefov, he refuses to move, going into battle with the faceless bureaucrats at the Town Hall who want the residents evicted. Meanwhile, the nighttime alleyways are haunted by a mythological monster nicknamed Kleinfleisch. Prostitutes are being murdered, and when Lord Mord’s mistress becomes a victim, he finds himself sucked into wider events that wrench him out of his Bohemian idyll. A dizzying cocktail of mystery, murder and Gothic romance, Lord Mord is more than worthy of an author who has been dubbed ‘the dark knight of Czech literature’.

Milos Urban is known as the 'dark knight of Czech literature'. A writer of power and imagination, his Gothic mysteries are nearly always set in his hometown, Prague.