Lidožrout (2026)

This Czech-language detective novel follows the accidental detective Ota Fink, who travels to a town in the northern border region during the bleak early spring of 1954 to visit his wartime friend Vilda Novák at the local zoo. There he discovers that although many animals can be deadly, the person controlling the predators is far more dangerous. Who is the true man-eating beast responsible for the death of a young keeper: a circus strongman, an accountant who resembles Queen Nefertiti, an elephant keeper, a lisping bird keeper, a bespectacled veterinarian, an elderly sausage seller, a rococo-style cashier, or even Vilda, a publicity worker and occasional night watchman? Only the tiger Remus is innocent, like any murder weapon. The official investigators appear to be following a false lead, leaving Ota only Saturday and Sunday to identify the culprit. Can fifteen-year-old Jana Šimšíková, confined to a wheelchair by polio, help him, and can Ota pick out the murderer among the zoo’s eccentric employees before he too falls into the predator’s grasp? This new edition also includes a retelling of the author’s memories of his own work at a zoo.