The Heart of Danger

The Heart of Danger by Seymour, Gerald. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780002250092.

In the wrecked Croat village of Rosenovici, a mass grave is uncovered and the mutilated body of a young Englishwoman, Dorrie Mowat, is exhumed. Her mother, who loathed Dorrie in life, becomes the driven victim of an obsession to discover the truth of her daughter s death. But with civil war tearing apart the former Yugoslavia, none of the authorities there or in England are interested in a minor war crime. Under the leadership of Milan Stankovic, clerk turned warlord, the Serb villagers of Salika - which had lived for half a century at peace with Rosenovici across the valley - will seek to keep the shaming story of Dorrie s murder as a bloodily guarded secret. Dorrie s mother hires Bill Penn, private investigator, MI5 reject. For Penn this should be a chance to pick up a good fee in return for a trip to safe Zagreb, and the writing of a useless report. Once he is over there, however, Penn begins to learn of the last hours of Dorrie s life. The image of the young woman draws him inexorably towards the killing ground behind the lines, to find the truth of her death and, perhaps, the truth of himself. Penn s search for evidence that could, one day, convict a war criminal in a court of law, becomes an epic journey into a merciless war where the odds are stacked high against him. Gerald Seymour has written bestselling novels about many of the communities and individuals caught up in the world s conflicts. Never has his ability to evoke the terror of war, its personal ferocity and political ambiguity, been so well displayed. Never has his ability to draw the reader into a nerve-breaking drama of courage and evil, principle and betrayal, been so supremely evident as in The Heart Of Danger.