Not terrible, but I didn't find it that riveting, either.

It is ostensibly a mystery novel, but really spends most of its time as a depressing mood piece. (Set in post war Communist Eastern Europe.) Repetitious accounts of graphic (though not horrendously so) violent encounters do not help.

I enjoy mood pieces sometimes, and like to get into characters, but this character was not that interesting, and delving into his mind this far took away from any mystery intrigue.

Even the character himself describes a pivotal event as an "anti-climax", and the reader will agree.

Average way to pass some time.

I didn't like this nearly as much as his Tourist series; however, this was his first book and I think he has gotten better as he has matured. This book reminded me a lot of Alan Furst's novels but not as rich. If you like this genre then I believe it is worth a read.

I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads contest.

Yeah....the story seemed really disjointed at times. It felt like parts were missing and situations resolved too quickly. It just was not a book written in a pace I enjoyed. It was not a bad book...just not to my taste. Very disjointed in feel and sterile.

I liked the first half of the book and then it kind of went downhill for me. Something in the book made me loose all interest and it happened really sudden too. It wasn't a specific scene or a plot twist (there wasn't even really a plot twist) Also, the audio book narrator was annoying with his fake accents. Probably that's what killed the book for me in the end.

Emil Brod is the downright worst fictional detective I have ever read. Not in the bumbling Inspector Clouseau way; nor in the action-is-everything Elvis Cole way that he will punch his way out of – Emil Brod is earnest, honest, idealistic, and has a gentle heart. It’s just that he is a seriously bad detective.

The Bridge of Sighs is Olen Steinhauer’s first novel, and one can call it a (recent) historical mystery. It’s set in the late ‘40s, soon after the war, in an unnamed, decrepit, poor, and war-ravaged (Eastern) European city, on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Emil Brod is a very young, freshly minted Police Detective of the People’s Militia. He joins the police forces of the city, and after initial hostilities, is faced with an absolutely hopeless case with the murder of a reasonably-famous state songwriter, and a subsequent linked murder to follow.

The effort to solve the case, his first, takes him into the incredibly evil and corrupted world of state politics. And in the arms of the estranged (and exquisite) widow of said songwriter. Brod is a good egg, though – sincere and soft-hearted. He approaches the case like many wouldn’t, with no worry for life nor career, like a typical bull in a china shop. He makes innumerable mistakes and upsets way too many apple carts. Indeed, at the end of the book and after the denouement, one sits back to wonder why one of the few near-death experiences did not, actually, result in him being bumped off along the way.

But he doesn’t, and you go along for the ride. You go along because you have developed a liking for Emil Brod. He is naively hopeful (notwithstanding the tough past that he is still sometimes haunted by), he wants to be good, and he stands out among the sea of bleakness and immorality around him. You go along because this is a peek into a world one does not know of. And you go along because even though detours are frustrating at times, the story does move along at pace. As for me, I have been brought up on Robert Ludlum and Frederick Forsyth. Slow set ups and detour-esque middle-thirds don't scare me. This isn’t bad at all.

There is a point-of-view that a mystery novel should not be too "well-written" in the literary sense, such that the writing takes away from the plot. I am not an advocate of the idea, but would just like to mention that there are passages here in this book that certainly would make such haters of the "literary" apoplectic with rage. Olen Steinhauer is excellent at building up the unnamed Eastern European city, with its bleak structures, forbidding walls and open countryside. This is lovely writing.

I have one complaint though. Lena is very cardboard, very manic-pixie-dream-girl. Even tertiary characters are written better, and have more life in them. Unfortunately, that seems to be a normal thing for many mystery stories written by male writers. Steinhauer is no Dashiell Hammett in writing women. But he can write alright. Perhaps the next novels would be better at this aspect?

Four stars in five is well-earned, I think. I look forward to reading the other Yalta Boulevard Novels.

Full disclosure, I only got halfway through the book before stopping. It was a frustrating read for me.

None of the characters are likable, I didn’t care about the murder or who did it, there didn’t seem to be anything here that was particularly original in the storytelling. The author puts you in an undisclosed Eastern Europe country but doesn’t tell you where so you don’t know if it’s real or fictional. It felt like a rehashing of previous, better told stories with formulaic characters. I can almost guarantee I know how it ends without finishing it.

I hate to get so far and quit but I just couldn’t, and I’ve muscled through some absolute stinkers.

I can't continue on with this book. It's terrible. The characters are strange & I can't figure out what the point of the story is. It's perplexing to me that I can both hate & love an author. ??

Fascinating. Dark and intriguing.