Reviewed by Darryl Greer for Readers' Favorite

Geza Tatrallyay’s Twisted Reasons is not an easy read. While it is a work of fiction, it is fable interwoven with reality, a harsh, perhaps even prophetic reality at that. Greg Martens is an author of what was once called ‘penny dreadfuls’: crime novels devoid of literary merit. But he finds himself invited, by mistake as it happens, to a conference in Vienna hosted by the Austrian Literary Society. He is excited because he plans to visit a life long friend, Adam Kallay. Greg and Adam share Hungarian roots. They had grown up together in Cleveland and later attended Harvard. Now, Adam is an official with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Greg’s exhilaration is short lived, however, when he hears of Adam’s demise in a motor accident. Greg then teams up with Adam’s friend Anne Rossiter, an Interpol Agent, and Julia, Adam’s Russian girlfriend, to solve a crime — theft of nuclear material from a former Soviet site, comprising sufficient uranium to make a dirty bomb. The adventure takes the reader from Vienna to radioactivity contaminated Chelyabnisk and to front-line Georgia. The pace quickens as the trio confronts arms merchants, terrorists and human traffickers, all in an unwelcome, freezing climate. Entwined with the present day saga is the intriguing backstory of Greg’s own family; doubtless there are some older readers from that part of the world who will identify with it.

The pace is swift as the action wrenches the reader from one scene to the next. Geza Tatrallyay is either a walking encyclopedia on the Chelyabnisk disaster and the highly secretive Mayak atomic weapons site, with an impressive working knowledge of the geography of the places visited in the story, or he had to undertake an enormous amount of research as he worked his way through the manuscript. This is a good, old-fashioned, page-turning adventure story blended with the modern – and very real – menaces of terrorism, human trafficking, and underworld arms dealing. Right from the prologue, which describes in movie-like imagery life inside a 1949 Soviet nuclear facility, with despair and hopelessness reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn’s A Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Tatrallyay has wonderfully captured the dreadful scene, the wretchedness of those forced to work in harsh and horrid conditions. Even when the action jumps to present day, none of the imagery is lost. There is page after page of mystery and intrigue. Characterization is excellent, every facet of each of the lead characters laid bare as the story moves forward. This is intelligent writing at its best (not surprising when you come to the author’s profile at the end). Twisted Reasons is a joy to read.