The Krakow Messenger

Author(s): Andrew A Kozelka

Location(s): Poland

Genre(s): Fiction, Historical

Era(s): 1860s

Location

Content

It is 1862. Young Count Adam Grabowski, a Pole brought up abroad after the 1830 Insurrection forced his parents into exile, visits Poland for the first time, summoned by a mysterious letter signed ‘Scipio’. He soon finds himself pulled into the shadowy underworld of the secret ‘National Government’ as the nation once again heads into a futile war with its Russian occupiers. Entrusted with a secret mission of great importance to the Cause, the count is diverted into an adventure that has terrible consequences for himself, the movement’s young leader, and all of Poland ?

One of five finalists for the Kirkus Review Literary Award, short-listed for the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Prize, and based on a true story, The Krakow Messenger is a taut, finely detailed atmospheric thriller told in the high literary style of the period. It is also a searing portrait of an anti-hero who, in his fanatical drive to help his nation achieve independence at any cost, foreshadows the darkest aspects of the ideologies to come.

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