Heda Margolius Kovály and a murder mystery in 1950s Prague

In the course of a life that spanned over 90 years, the writer and
translator Heda Margolius Kovály survived the very worst that the
twentieth century could bring: first Auschwitz and then the anti-Semitic
show trials in 1950s Czechoslovakia, in which her husband was sentenced to
death and executed. Heda Margolius Kovály died in 2010, but her moving
account of her life, Under a Cruel Star, continues to be read widely. She
also wrote a second book, a detective story set in Stalinist Prague. The
book is a novel – taking inspiration from Raymond Chandler – but it is
also steeped in autobiographical detail, a murder mystery that digs under
the surface of a dark period in Czechoslovak history. For the first time it
has been published in English translation. More from David Vaughan.