Marcín Świetlicki - Tizenhárom

This crime novel by Marcin Świetlicki takes readers into the old town of Kraków, where the cult pubs buzz around a ageing former child actor known to everyone as the Master, a hard-drinking man who has spent years in self-destructive decline. Just when hope seems to return, a Warsaw media agency offers him a substantial sum to write his memoirs.

As the air grows heavier in the bars and the streets fill with tourists, Szotyka, a local sex worker, suffers a strange injury on the job, and a young woman who hangs around the Master dies under mysterious circumstances.

Behind the seemingly carefree lives and the lively backdrop of Kraków's streets lies a carnival-like picture of contemporary Poland, full of money-hungry careerists, hypocritical politicians and powerful media moguls. The 300-page paperback is glued-bound.