The Shadow Land

By Elizabeth Kostova

This book is about an American girl who is still haunted by the loss of her brother who disappeared on a family hiking trip years before.  She feels guilty because she and her brother had an argument just before he disappeared.  Her brother had talked about wanting to visit Bulgaria (why we never know).

The young woman, Alexandra, decides to take a temporary job in Bulgaria.  Soon after arriving in Bulgaria she helps an elderly couple into a taxi - and realises too late that she has accidentally kept one of their bags. Inside she finds an ornately carved wooden box engraved with a name: Stoyan Lazarov.  It is a funeral urn.

She asks the driver of the taxi she is in to return quickly to the hotel but she is unable to find the people the urn belongs to.  She goes to the police and until they learn the name on the urn they don't seem interested. Then they do take an interest and give her the address of one of the dead man's family in a different town in Bulgaria.  Alexandra and the taxi driver set off for there.
This is the first of many trips around Bulgaria trying to find the owners of the urn.  Along the way they meet other members of the man's family.

As this story is being told we also have the story of the dead man.  He was an accomplished violinist, working in Vienna.  He returned to Bulgaria when war started to break out in Europe.  He wasn't able to get jobs in an orchestra so did other work.  He was arrested several times and sent to work camps.

I read a review of the book and they talk about the tortuous journey to the resolution of the book.... I agree... I don't know why there had to be all this to and fro'ing.  In the end we find out that the dead man had written a history of his imprisonment and included information that will implicate a man who is aspiring to lead the country as one of the violent leaders at one of the camps.

While Alexandra is driving around with the taxi driver we find out he was a former police officer and is an acclaimed poet.  Alexandra seems to like him but he is gay.  For some reason she has fallen for the young man, the father of the dead man.  This part doesn't seem justified, nor does the girls sadness about her brother seem to belong to the story.  I don't think that she comes to any resolution about her brother in the course of the book.  In the end, she and the young man go to Vienna, to bury the dead man, as this is where he wanted to be buried.  He was a fan of Vivaldi.

It was an okay read but a bit labourious.... I was skipping some near the end of the book just to finish it.