Acknowledgements

The translator thanks her fellow translator and true wordsmith Peter Lewis for his unfailing editorial flair.

The crime at the centre of this novel is a true story: in July 2012, the bodies of a Serbian couple were discovered in their house in Talinovac, Kosovo. Both had been shot in the back of the head. This double murder caused a furore among the Serbian population and was exploited by Serbian officialdom and media circles to foment public opinion against Kosovan Albanians; equally, on the Kosovan Albanian side it was used to stir up sentiment against the Serbs. To this day, the murders have not been solved.

Aside from this case, the plot of this novel is pure invention, and all the characters appearing in it are entirely fictitious. Any similarities between them and actual characters or events are entirely coincidental.