{"product_id":"walter-presentsisbn-9781782277224","title":"Walter Presents","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn intricately plotted mystery and an engrossing story imbued with the foggy atmosphere of post-Communist Prague, the third book in the Walter Presents Library is a bewitching mystery about a woman who claims to transcribe music from the ghost of Chopin.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePrague, 1995: Vera Foltynova, a widow in her late 50s, claims to receive visits from the ghost of great composer Frederic Chopin. What's more, she declares that Chopin has dictated dozens of compositions to her, to allow the world to hear the sublime music he was unable to create in his own short life. Many dismiss her story as a ridiculous hoax, while others swear that the music has the same beauty and refinement as the work of the dead master.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLudvik Slany, a secret police agent-turned-television journalist, is assigned to make a documentary debunking Vera's claims. He arrives in Prague ready to uncover a scam, but the more he subtly tries to trick her into giving herself away, the more he begins to think he may be witnessing a genuine miracle...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Ghost of Frederic Chopin\u003c\/i\u003e is an engrossing story of music, faith and the ghosts of the past.\"[\u003ci\u003eThe Ghost of Chopin\u003c\/i\u003e] has the depth and elegance of a nocturne... Éric Faye makes his hero and his story alternate between the meticulous realism of the investigation and a delicate fantasy, quietly opening an unlimited field of possibilities\" \u003ci\u003eLe Croix\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A noir novel imbued with mystery and elegance... invites us to discover a Prague, rainy and unsettling, but terribly bewitching\"\u003ci\u003e ActuaLitté\u003c\/i\u003eÉric Faye is a journalist and prize-winning author of over twenty books of fiction, essays and travel writing. For his fiction he has been awarded the Deux-Margots Prize and the Grand Prix du roman from the Académie Française. \u003ci\u003eThe Ghost of Frederic Chopin\u003c\/i\u003e is his eleventh novel.I\u003cbr\u003eThe cobblestones were damp and slippery but, all things\u003cbr\u003econsidered, he decided it was better to risk twisting his\u003cbr\u003eankle than to lose sight of the woman walking quickly a hundred\u003cbr\u003efeet ahead of him; this woman who, according to Slaný,\u003cbr\u003ewas in communication with Frédéric Chopin a century and a\u003cbr\u003ehalf after his death. A strange case… If anyone had told him,\u003cbr\u003eten years before, that ten years later – on this gloomy Monday,\u003cbr\u003ean All Saints’ Day in the twilight of the century – he would no\u003cbr\u003elonger be a member of the secret police but would be reduced\u003cbr\u003eto playing private detective in a country that had been sliced in\u003cbr\u003ehalf and converted to capitalism, he would have cursed the future.\u003cbr\u003eThen again, if that same someone had added that he would be\u003cbr\u003espying on a former school dinner lady who transcribed dozens\u003cbr\u003eof posthumous scores dictated to her by the Polish composer,\u003cbr\u003ethe fanciful part of his personality would have been awakened\u003cbr\u003eand he would have thought that, on further consideration, the\u003cbr\u003efuture merited a closer look. And if, moreover, that mysterious\u003cbr\u003esomeone had told him that the woman in question was\u003cbr\u003ethe widow of a recalcitrant individual whom he had followed\u003cbr\u003eyears before, he would have seen in his future occupation of\u003cbr\u003edetective the suggestive glow of destiny, of a torch handed on\u003cbr\u003efrom past to present.\u003cbr\u003eYes, this woman and her ghost made a change from those\u003cbr\u003edissidents who haunted bars into the small hours under the\u003cbr\u003eprevious regime, those damned dissidents who had given him so\u003cbr\u003emany nagging chest infections over the years, from sitting and\u003cbr\u003ewaiting in unheated cars, because this StB agent had suffered\u003cbr\u003efrom weak lungs ever since he was a little boy.\u003cbr\u003eThe woman he was following, whose fame was starting to spread\u003cbr\u003efar beyond the mountains of Bohemia, had been called Věra\u003cbr\u003eFoltýnova since her marriage, twenty-six years earlier. She was\u003cbr\u003eborn Věra Kowalski one June day in 1938 – nobody remembered\u003cbr\u003ethe exact date – which made her fifty-seven on that particular\u003cbr\u003eAll Saints’ Day in 1995.\u003cbr\u003eWhen she reappeared in his field of vision, the former StB\u003cbr\u003eagent breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t the first time she’d\u003cbr\u003ebriefly vanished from sight that day, since leaving her apartment;\u003cbr\u003eeach time he lost her like that, he started sweating, despite all\u003cbr\u003ehis experience of shadowing people from a distance. And then\u003cbr\u003eher chubby figure would materialise again, a mischievous smile\u003cbr\u003eon her face. If that was the game, he was happy to play along.\u003cbr\u003eShe had been constantly on the move since mid-morning.\u003cbr\u003eAnd the detective hadn’t had a chance to rest in the past week.\u003cbr\u003eNow that the street had straightened out, he thought things\u003cbr\u003emight get easier. He would follow her more closely to make sure\u003cbr\u003ehe didn’t lose her again. Where could she be headed? One thing\u003cbr\u003ewas sure: she wasn’t going home, because her home was in the\u003cbr\u003eopposite direction. It was almost noon… When she went into\u003cbr\u003ea food shop, he exhaled and celebrated this brief respite by\u003cbr\u003elighting a cigarette. Just then, he remembered that the journalist\u003cbr\u003ehad asked him to get in touch as soon as he had some news. He\u003cbr\u003espotted a telephone booth a dozen feet from where he stood. It\u003cbr\u003erang twice before the journalist answered.\u003cbr\u003e‘Ludvík Slaný, Česká televize.’\u003cbr\u003e‘It’s Pavel Černý. You asked me to keep you in the loop,\u003cbr\u003eand I’ve got a moment now because she’s nipped into a shop.\u003cbr\u003eShe left home just before ten and went to Olšany to put flowers\u003cbr\u003eon her husband’s grave. Right now, I’m close to Vyšehrad.’\u003cbr\u003eHe went on like this for a few more sentences, then suddenly\u003cbr\u003esaid: ‘Hang on, she’s coming out. She bought another pot of\u003cbr\u003echrysanthemums. And now… yes, it’s just as I thought: she’s\u003cbr\u003egoing up the street. I’ll call you again when I get a chance. I\u003cbr\u003edon’t want to lose her…’","brand":"Pushkin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305193459941,"sku":"NP9781782277224","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781782277224.jpg?v=1730759683","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/walter-presentsisbn-9781782277224","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}