The war that broke out in the former Yugoslavia at the end of the twentieth century saw unspeakable acts of violence committed against defenceless civilians, including a macabre night of mass murder at Ovcara pig farm in 1991. An international tribunal was set up to try the perpetrators of crimes such as these, and one of the accused was Slavko Dokmanovic, who at the time was the mayor of the local town. Vladimir Dzuro, a criminal detective from Prague, was one of the investigators charged with finding out what happened leading up to and during that horrific night.
The story Dzuro presents here, drawn from his daily notes, is hard reading. The incidents are not for the fainthearted. It was a time of torture, random killings and innocent people who had gone missing. But as a detective, it wasn't his job to pass judgment but rather to establish the facts and find those responsible. He provides a gripping account of how he and a handful of other investigators picked up the barest of leads, which eventually led them to locate the gravesite and exhume the bodies. They were even able to track down Dokmanovic, only to find that getting a hold of him was a different story altogether. The politics that led to the war hindered justice once the war was over. But Dzuro and his colleagues had a plan. Without any thoughts of risk to their own personal safety, they were determined to bring Dokmanovic to justice. They knew if they could pull it off, it would only be a matter of time before other accused war criminals were hauled into court as well.
The Investigator reads like a thriller and was an instant best seller in the Czech Republic. Now in its second edition, the book was nominated for the Czech national literary prize Magnezia Literia 2018. Translated into English for the first time, this story reveals to the English speaking world the horrors of the Yugoslavic Wars and chronicles a team of brave investigators who stopped at nothing to bring those who were responsible to justice.
