Belgravia
Hedge fund partner and Belgravian
Marcus Fedder has published his
first novel. A fast-paced story of
love and loss, you won’t put it down
until the last page, says Kate White
On love and war
Janna works in a children’s hospital and is When Janna joins Dan for a weekend in
falling in love with her banker boyfriend Vienna, the decadence of their luxury
Dan. But as the war escalates in her native hotel, just a short flight from Sarajevo,
Bosnia, she finds herself torn between her highlights the seeming indifference about
comfortable life in London and the the bloodshed of the rest of Europe.
country she wanted to leave behind. As Dan leaves the hotel and notices some
When her father calls from Sarajevo to crows staring at him with cruel, beady eyes,
tell her people are dying because there are he wonders: “Where were these birds the
no doctors, her mind is made up – much week before? Did they come from Sarajevo,
to Dan’s horror she returns home to work from Bosnia, from the war? Were they
in a hospital stitching up the wounded. picking at the dead soldiers rotting in the
In Sarajevo the warmth of Janna’s family trenches? At children lying in Sniper Alley?
and friends is in stark contrast to the cold “Crows are cruel, and eat flesh. My
brutality of the shells and snipers. On a mother told us – when we were kids – of
quiet day with no explosions, Janna writes: crows which flew to Dachau, landing inside
“War breeds a very special sense of the fences, staring at the prisoners with
humour. Our sarcasm is better than any cruel eyes, and then flying away, when
you can find in Britain.” there was nothing to pick at, like cynical
The reader is forced to assess the black humour sent by the SS.”
relationship between religion and war. It’s a startling image that will make the
At Christmas, Dan observes: “It’s weird to reader think again about looking the other
think that the people who are lobbing way.
shells at you to kill you are celebrating
the birth of Christ, praying for peace Sarabande is available in all good bookshops
and happiness to the same God you are priced at £8.99.
praying to.”
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