The Black Raven and the White Crows

When a heavily tattooed male body is found in the woods, inspectors Sećija and Sadik assume the case will be very soon neglected and closed, like most of the others in Central Bosnia. Instead of justice and moral, many of members of society go by their best interest: how to work as little as possible and take a shortcut to making fortune, while enjoying lascivious practice of some kind of vice. But investigation of the “case Raven”, as they’ll call the body, will absorb the two detectives of questionable principles deeper into the comprehensive social problem, through narco-milieu, dormitories for the war orphans, encounters with wide spread mafia net, numerous rapes, and even more murders. Painting a much bigger picture of a harsh reality in Bosnia, they will reveal capillary corruption, deep misery and poverty, decay of legal institutions and moral values. This hard-boiled detective story The Black Raven and the White Crows  goes beyond a popular literary form of a crime novel. Inspired in real life events, this uncompromising page-turner is Mlakić’s confrontation with the dark Bosnian reality almost in a Balzaquian manner, invoking collective responsibility of society that already lost so much and many to the war.

Awards:
Balkan Noir prize for the best regional crime novel

World rights available