As readers, we are accustomed to reading stories of war and injustice from the victims’ point of view, sympathizing with their plight. In Detective Story, the tables have been turned, leaving us in the mind of a monster, as Nobel Laureate Imre Kertész plunges us into a story of the worst kind, told by a man living outside morality.

Now in prison, Antonio Martens is a torturer for the secret police of a recently defunct dictatorship. He requests and is given writing materials in his cell, and what he has to recount is his involvement in the surveillance, torture, and assassination of Federigo and Enrique Salinas, a prominent father and son whose principled but passive opposition to the regime left them vulnerable to the secret police. Preying on young Enrique’s aimless life, the secret police began to position him as a subversive and then targeted his father. Once this plan was set into motion, any means were justified to reach the regime’s chosen end—the destruction of an entire liberal class.

Inside Martens’s mind, we inhabit the rationalizing world of evil and see firsthand the inherent danger of inertia during times of crisis. A slim, explosive novel of justice railroaded by malevolence, Detective Story is a warning cry for our time.

凯尔泰斯·伊姆雷（1929— ），匈牙利作家，2002年诺贝尔文学奖得主，也是匈牙利迄今唯一获此殊荣的作家。他出生于犹太家庭，二战期间曾先后被投入奥斯威辛和布痕瓦尔德等集中营。这段亲身经历和家人的遭遇对凯尔泰斯产生了根本性影响，他长期从事大屠杀文学创作，自认为若没有奥斯威辛，他就只是个普通人。他的代表作有小说《无命运的人生》《惨败》《给未出生的孩子祈祷》《清算》，日记《苦役日记》《另一个人》《用另一种方式保存》，随笔集《作为文化的大屠杀》《行刑队再次上膛前的瞬间静默》等。