The Zalumirsk Affair

Vienna, 5 July 1914. Constantin Capogreco wakes up in a sanatorium with no recollection of his identity, his family or the events that brought him there. All he knows is that the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, has been shot dead. Which is odd, because Constantin fell unconscious twelve hours before the assassination. The crisis occurred when he and his former schoolfriend Giovanni Valori broke down at a house party in the far-flung Galician castle of Zalumirsk. No one observed the lead-up to their collapse, and no one can explain it. While Giovanni retreats into silence, Constantin's fractured memories suggest a web of sexual betrayal and psychological dominance. But there is a darker force at play, a force that neither science nor reason can explain. Three weeks into the Great War, Constantin falls in action, dashing any hope of explaining his prescience. After the conflict, his father Dimitri decides to get to the bottom of it. But as he scours Mittel- and Southern Europe, from Vienna to Trieste and from Venice to the newly founded kingdom of Yugoslavia, he butts against a persistent obstacle: Giovanni Valori, his only hope of finding out the truth, has vanished. In the end, after many highs and lows, he tracks Giovanni down to a snowbound friary in Croatia. Spanning the fall of an empire, the destruction of a generation and a chilling disclosure, The Zalumirsk Affair is a haunting story of guilt, forbidden love and the terrible consequences of surrendering to evil.