Cold War atmosphere brilliantly created

T

he Day of the Lie is the fourth novel by William Brodrick, winner of the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger. It puts his hero, the lawyer-turned-monk Father Anselm, in Poland with the difficult task of seeking restorative justice for some victims of communism - as well as the horrors of the Nazi invasion in World War 2.

I found it hard to keep track of all the characters, but a central one is the 80-year-old Roza, who survived the war and was tortured in the Stalinist terror of the early 1950s when her husband was killed by the authorities. She was then forced to relinquish a baby daughter.

Anselm has to go from his serene Larkbridge Priory in Cambridge to investigations in Warsaw that have a John Le Carre atmosphere of historic spies and intrigue - and his own philosophic and spiritual questioning, and intuition, is well tested.

The atmosphere of a mystery in eastern Europe back in the icy grip of the Cold War is brilliantly conveyed, but I found the characters in this book were rather too sketchily drawn.

There were few solid descriptions of the people and even our monk-cum-detective seemed a distant figure, although we hear those debates within his mind and how they rather stumbled to a conclusion that is still somewhat unsatisfactory - as is the ending to this whole dark mystery.

Thank heavens, though, it places Anselm safely back in the priory for a breather.

• Geoff Adams is a former ODT editor.