Basic Law: A Mystery of Cold War Europe

by J. Sydney Jones

Overview

A peace-seeking man must unravel the mystery that led to his former lover’s death

Expat American journalist Sam Kramer is burned out: too many dead bodies, too many wars covered, too little meaning in it all. He’s got a dead-end job at the Daily European as the correspondent for Vienna, where nothing happens now that the Cold War is over. And that is exactly how Kramer likes it.

But his private neutral zone is shattered with news of the suicide of Reni Müller, a German left-wing firebrand and Kramer’s long-estranged ex-girlfriend. To his surprise, Kramer suddenly finds himself the executor of Reni’s literary estate—but the damning memoir named in her will is nowhere to be found. Tracking down the manuscript will lead Kramer to the unsettling truth of Reni’s death, drawing him back into the days of the Cold War and showing him the dark side of the woman he loved.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781497690479
Publisher:	Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Publication date:	04/14/2015
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

J. Sydney Jones (b. 1948) is an American author of fiction and nonfiction. Born in the United States, he studied abroad in Vienna in 1968 and later returned to Austria to live there for nearly two decades. In the late 1970s he began writing travel books, many of which concern central Europe, and published his first thriller, Time of the Wolf, in 1990. In 2009 Jones published The Empty Mirror, a mystery set in late-nineteenth-century Vienna that would become the first book in his Viennese Mystery series, of which the most recent installment is The Keeper of Hands (2013). Jones lives with his wife and son in California. 

Editorial Reviews

06/15/2015
In this fast-moving suspense novel from Jones (The German Agent), set a few years after the end of the Cold War, Sam Kramer, an American foreign correspondent in Vienna, flies to Bonn after learning that Reni Müller, former head of the Green coalition in the German Parliament, has killed herself. Though he hasn't seen Reni in more than 20 years, Kramer rushes to attend the funeral because of their past intimacy. He's surprised to learn that he was named her literary executor and that no evidence exists of the memoir she supposedly was working on at the time of her death. When Kramer gets the name of Peter Gorik, someone she may have interviewed for her book, he finds out that Gorik, who was with East German intelligence, recently died in an accident. Increasingly convinced that Reni was killed to keep her disclosing some dangerous secrets, the reporter doggedly investigates. Kramer is more credible as a journalist than as an action hero, and veteran genre readers will encounter few surprises, but Jones will keep them turning pages. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"A perfect blend of thriller and whodunit, ‘Basic Law’ provides an absorbing look at a perilous time. A yarn spun with skill and chills, moral absolutes and moral ambiguities, it challenges the reader from first to last page.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch
 
“Jones’ measured, stately prose is perfectly in tune with his period setting.” —Kirkus Reviews on The Silence
 
“An intricately plotted, gracefully written, and totally immersive read.” —Library Journal on The Silence
 
“[Jones] smoothly blends a compelling period whodunit with bountiful cultural and social details.” —Publishers Weekly on Requiem in Vienna
 

From the Publisher