Cienie with delivery to Ireland

A new novel by Wojciech Chmielarz, winner of the Wielki Kaliber award.

Two women are killed in Milanówek: the daughter and the partner of a notorious gangster. They were shot with Sub-Inspector Kochan's gun, and Kochan himself has vanished. But he calls Mortka and asks for help. Someone is framing him.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Sucha is trying to get to the bottom of a hidden-camera recording that shows several men raping a young man. She has identified high-ranking politicians among them. She knows that if she makes the recording public, they will deny everything. What's more, the young man has taken his own life.

Mortka and Sucha decide to help each other. They do not yet know that their investigations are connected, or that they will come face to face with death. The questions multiply. Who stands to gain from Kochan being guilty? Will the friendship between the inspector and the sub-inspector survive this test? Whom can they trust? Is it possible to escape the past? Or perhaps everyone is followed by some shadow…

I could recommend Wojciech Chmielarz's books sight unseen. But I don't. Because I simply enjoy reading him. Precise in his language, superb at weaving a criminal plot. Credible. Whenever I hear that Chmielarz is working on a new book, I know for certain that I'll soon be holding a first-rate story. He didn't disappoint me this time either. This is a real page-turner!

Angelika Kuźniak

I have often wondered what makes Wojciech Chmielarz such an inimitable phenomenon, standing apart in Polish crime fiction. Only while reading Cienie did I understand. Everything. With Cienie, Chmielarz once again confirms his remarkable standing and his writing form in the finest of all underworlds.

Irek Grin

Unexplained events, brilliantly drawn characters, friendships put to the hardest of tests, and in the background Warsaw, a city of great opportunities and painful downfalls. Chmielarz masterfully shows that there is no escaping the past. It always catches up with you, and usually when you least expect it…

Vincent V. Severski