About this guide
The questions and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading
group's discussion of Lie in the Dark, a haunting detective novel set in
war-torn Sarajevo. Written by a journalist who covered Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Croatia, and Serbia during the conflicts that followed the fall of Communism in
Yugoslavia, it is at once gripping fiction and vivid eyewitness history.
In a city where death from mortars, bombs, and sniper fire has become routine,
Inspector Vlado Petric works as a homicide detective. Despite ridicule from
friends, who liken him to a plumber fixing leaky faucets in the midst of a flood,
he doggedly investigates the crimes that thrive in war and in peace: spurned
lovers shooting one another, drunks stabbed over the last drop in a bottle,
gamblers beaten for not paying their debts. Petric dreams of getting a case that
really matters, one that will not only counteract the debilitating combination of
fear and boredom of living in a besieged city, but will somehow justify his very
existence. The possibility of such a case coming his way becomes less likely
when, early in the war, the Interior Ministry creates its own police unit to
cover high-profile cases. Then one night Petric literally stumbles upon the body
that will mark the turning point in his career. The murder victim is Esmir Vitas,
the chief of the Interior Ministry's special police. Eager to prove to the
U.N.--which is monitoring every move made in Sarajevo--that the new government is
above reproach and worthy of international support, the Interior Ministry
designates Petric as an independent investigator. In an inquiry that takes him
from the enclaves of Sarajevo's flourishing black market to the most-bombed out
sections of the city to an outpost of guerrilla soldiers in the surrounding
hills, Petric uncovers a web of dangerous secrets and unthinkable betrayals.
In Lie in the Dark Dan Fesperman brings to life the grim, chaotic
atmosphere of Sarajevo, the private tragedies of its war-weary citizens, and the
corruption that feeds on desperation and despair with an immediacy that echoes
the best works of Graham Greene and John Le Carré. In a world where the innocent
fare no better than the guilty, he presents a hero forced to redefine his own
beliefs about right and wrong in order to survive.
For discussion
- Aside from the threat of official sanctions, why does Petric refuse to talk
to the English journalist about corruption in the local government? Are
journalists and other outsiders able to report on the conflict objectively, or
are they influenced by their own cultural prejudices? How does the freedom to
leave Sarajevo whenever they want affect their perspective on the war?
- Do
you agree with Toby Perkins's statement that war is "always about money, or
power, or whatever form of wealth you want to name'' [p. 9]? Most events in the
book support this belief. Which, if any, contradict it?
- Is Petric morally
wrong to accept coffee, cigarettes, and other gifts as he goes about his work?
How does he justify his behavior? Can certain rules of conduct be suspended
during wartime, or is it important to maintain the conventions of a civilized
society in the midst of chaos?
- How do loneliness and isolation shape
Investigator Petric as a character, and how do they color the way he deals with
others?
- When Petric is given the case, Kasic tells him, "Keep the major
work for yourself. The fewer who have access to your findings, the better" [p.
51]. Does the way Kasic presents the case--along with his offers of "technical"
help--support his promise that Petric will be able to operate independently? Is
it possible for police investigations to be completely free of the political
interests and ambitions of those in power?
- How do Petric's personal
feelings about the victim and about his colleagues color his investigation? Do
his assumptions help or hinder him? Is he overconfident or na•ve about what he
can achieve?
- Glavas gives Petric the key to solving Vitas's murder. What
other function does he serve in the novel? How do his opinions and stories
strengthen Petric's determination to get to the bottom of the case at any cost?
- Petric's old friend, Goran, accuses him of being "One of those poor
deluded souls who thinks he's got this figured out--who believes that survival is
all there is to it" [p. 146]. To what extent is this an accurate portrait? How do
his phone conversations with his wife, as well as his musings about his daughter,
belie this impression of him? Is Petric's careful, seemingly unemotional approach
to crime and chaos essential to his success as a policeman?
- From Dashiell
Hammett to Tony Hillerman to Ed McBain, many writers have created detective
heroes who appear in several novels. If you've read their novels, how does Petric
compare to those detectives? How is he similar and/or different?
- Does the
absence of civil order aid Petric's investigation in any way? Which particular
acts, interviews, or strategies might have been more difficult or even impossible
under normal circumstances?
- Does Petric succumb to the corruption that
surrounds him, or are his actions the only choices he has? How do they illustrate
his contention that "When it seems that the future would never arrive, every day
became a sort of judgment day. Every morning seemed a vindication of your
behavior the day before" [p. 62]? Do the other characters live by this principle
as well? Is personal survival the only thing that matters during wartime? What
books have you read that offer a different perspective on coping with the
atrocities of war? Were their protagonists more admirable than Petric?
- Petric's three encounters with the prostitute--his clumsy attempts to buy
her, his cursory interrogation at his office, and finally, his day long stay at
her apartment--create an affinity between them. What cues, dialogue, and actions
made this relationship inevitable and necessary?
- When shellbursts and
gunfire become a sort of background music, how does it influence the reader's
reaction to other descriptive details?
- Do you think Petric and his family
will return if peace is finally achieved in Sarajevo? Why or why not?
- The
bloody conflicts in the former Yugoslavia represent one of the darkest periods of
recent history. Does Lie in the Dark give you a clearer understanding of the
causes of the ongoing civil wars? Why did Fesperman choose as his protagonist the
son of a Catholic mother and Muslim father who, officially classified as a
Catholic Croat, is married to the Muslim daughter of a Serb mother?
- Wartime conditions are often thought to bring communities closer together.
Petric, for example, remembers being taught that the citizens of London and
Stalingrad stuck together as their cities suffered the devastation of World War
II [p. 3]. Why is there a rise in crime in his own besieged city? In what ways
does the situation in Sarajevo differ from the circumstances the English and
Russians faced during World War II?
- Petric's deputy says "Tito lied about
everything. That was his job" [p. 20]. As the leader of a fragmented nation, was
it essential for Tito to tell lies? Instead of perpetuating the myth of ethnic
harmony, should he have dealt directly with the history of hatred that festered
in Yugoslavia? Is it possible for any ruler to eliminate a population's
centuries-old fears and suspicions?
- Glavas says "In every tale of war
there is always a tale of art, of one culture trying to steal the soul of
another" [p. 113]. Discuss how this statement relates specifically to the events
in Bosnia as well as its relevance to World War II and other twentieth-century
conflicts.
- The siege guns are punishing the city in part for its
indifference to ethnic division. Yet within the city, there is still a tangible
emphasis on other divisions--gypsies are still a sub-class, rural versus urban.
Why would these differneces still be evident, given the causes that have brought
about the siege?
- Discuss how the U.N. is depicted in the novel. Do you
think that in the name of neutrality, it allows inhuman suffering to continue, as
Glavas suggests [p. 128]? What humanitarian obligation do the U.N. and/or
individual nations have to war-ravaged areas? What role, if any, can an outside
force play in restoring peace to Bosnia and other areas torn apart by internal
conflicts?
Suggestions for further reading
Tim Binding, Lying with the Enemy; Ken Follett, Eye of the Needle; Frederick
Forsyth, The Devil's Alternative; Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear, The Third
Man; Robert Harris, Archangel; Michael Hetzer, The Forbidden Zone; John Le Carré,
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Single & Single; Iain Pears, Death and Restoration;
Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park, Havana Bay. For background on the war in Bosnia:
Zlata Filipovic, Zlata's Diary; Peter Maas, Love Thy Neighbor; Lynn H. Nicholas,
The Rape of Europa; Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.
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