Bombarda Joe – Šmíd Zdeněk (2014)

The short story collection by a well-known author contains two novellas: Skin with a Severed Head and The Treasure of the Dead Guardians. In the first of the two novellas in this book, we meet Honza Kláda from Malířov. He is essentially a good-natured fellow, but when injustice occurs, he does not know a brother. Because of this trait, Honza gets involved with three other heroes in a convoluted story that begins with a murdered skinhead and a stolen mysterious headband, continues with a wild chase with a gang of killers across Czech lands, and culminates in the release of an army of knights from Blaník, as the struggle for power over this invincible force is the central theme of the novella. Everything, of course, ends well, but only so that Kláda can be exposed to a new adventure in the following novella, The Treasure of the Dead Guardians, in which he must undertake a time-traveling journey to the past under pressure from a criminal gang to save his kidnapped wife and help the gangsters find a castle treasure.