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The Monkey House
Rosso is the Detective Inspector trying to find a brutal murderer in the heart of a Balkan city ravaged by war. He has learnt to take each day as it comes, with bullets anddeath around every corner. Luka is crime boss, intent on exploiting the misery of his city's inhabitants while also providing the only means of defence they have left. Tanja is the young woman loved, and set up, by both men and faced with an impossible conflict of. Flett is the foreign reporter, a citizen who hears and sees it all, partially protected by his job, but like the others, sucked in to the mire that is Sarajevo, once an elegant capital, now a battered but defiant place torn apart by a civilisation that has turned on itself.
348 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
15 people are currently reading
164 people want to read
About the author
John Fullerton
15 books55 followersJohn Fullerton worked briefly during the Cold War as a 'contract labourer' for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, an episode that fired up his interest in fictional espionage. He failed spectacularly in his efforts as a farmer in Zimbabwe and as a trainee financial manager in Cape Town. As a newspaperman, freelance journalist and then Reuters correspondent, he lived or worked in 40 countries and covered a dozen wars. The latter provided some of the settings for his fiction, including Beirut and Sarajevo. His latest thriller, Emperor, was published in 2022. He has an MA with distinction in Buddhist Studies and was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund at Roehampton University in 2006/7.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
October 18, 2010
This book frustrated the hell out of me. At least part of this is due to weird literary fetishes on my part; namely, as the layout of Sarajevo is a major part of the action, a map of the city giving the approximate Serbian front during the time period the action takes place would have been very helpful. Which leads me to my second bit of nitpicking: the action takes place over four days during the winter-probably December-but explicit dates are never mentioned. I hate when a novel structured around a historical event (in this case the siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War) doesn't provide dates. Since the main character mentions that Zagreb (the capital of Croatia) is peaceful I am guessing this puts the story at late 1995 but I don't really know. Finally on a more general note, some of the characters' actions were....distractingly difficult to understand. At one point, the main character's goddaughter Tanja has a pivotal scene at a cemetery during a funeral service. She doesn't know anyone at the service. Why is she even there given how extremely dangerous it is just to be outside on any given day, nevermind that the weather is below zero?
Now that I'm done nitpicking I will say that the elements that worked in this story really worked well. This is the first novel by British journalist John Fullerton who has covered various conflicts, including Bosnia. The story is about a police inspector named Rosso who is of Croatian descent and, for reasons that become clear later, suffers near overwhelming guilt about his family background. He lives in Sarajevo with his alcoholic Serbian wife and a young Muslim woman they took in when her family were killed. He returns from a visit in Croatia to find one of his informants, a young Serbian dentist and heroin addict, has been murdered in a particularly gruesome way. She lived in an apartment building where many of the remaining Serbians in town live called the Monkey House by locals. Rosso's determination to find the killer of a Serbian baffles many of his colleagues who are slowly starving, sleepless and in constant fear of sniper fire from the Serbian army. His obsession with the case becomes seemingly suicidal when it puts him at loggerheads with the local crime lord and folk hero, Luka.
There are many great touches in the book which give the reader a fleeting glimpse of civilian life during war. As befits a starving people, everyone is obsessed with food. One character rescues a victim of sniper fire then becomes angry at her for getting shot. A surgeon weeps because he cannot save lives and limbs as he could only a few years before when he had a working hospital. Rosso at various points dodges mortar rounds and sniper fire, while the author describes the varying sounds they make in strangely poetic prose.
Unless you are familiar with the basics of the Balkan conflicts during the mid-90's, expect to do a prodigious amount of Googling to understand parts of the story. But even if you are somewhat familiar with it, you'll also know you could read ten books and still not understand why all of this tragedy and waste happened.
Now that I'm done nitpicking I will say that the elements that worked in this story really worked well. This is the first novel by British journalist John Fullerton who has covered various conflicts, including Bosnia. The story is about a police inspector named Rosso who is of Croatian descent and, for reasons that become clear later, suffers near overwhelming guilt about his family background. He lives in Sarajevo with his alcoholic Serbian wife and a young Muslim woman they took in when her family were killed. He returns from a visit in Croatia to find one of his informants, a young Serbian dentist and heroin addict, has been murdered in a particularly gruesome way. She lived in an apartment building where many of the remaining Serbians in town live called the Monkey House by locals. Rosso's determination to find the killer of a Serbian baffles many of his colleagues who are slowly starving, sleepless and in constant fear of sniper fire from the Serbian army. His obsession with the case becomes seemingly suicidal when it puts him at loggerheads with the local crime lord and folk hero, Luka.
There are many great touches in the book which give the reader a fleeting glimpse of civilian life during war. As befits a starving people, everyone is obsessed with food. One character rescues a victim of sniper fire then becomes angry at her for getting shot. A surgeon weeps because he cannot save lives and limbs as he could only a few years before when he had a working hospital. Rosso at various points dodges mortar rounds and sniper fire, while the author describes the varying sounds they make in strangely poetic prose.
Unless you are familiar with the basics of the Balkan conflicts during the mid-90's, expect to do a prodigious amount of Googling to understand parts of the story. But even if you are somewhat familiar with it, you'll also know you could read ten books and still not understand why all of this tragedy and waste happened.
November 27, 2024
- De alguna manera, una historia un poco pesada y mal explicada, donde se cruzan las informaciones de la guerra de los periódicos... Si de verdad quieres escribir sobre los momentos más oscuros de un país, no te informas de fuentes incorrectos y de propaganda... Eso simplemente ruina la historia entera... Pena...
April 1, 2021
What to say? The subject and setting are dark and grim and sad. The writing is good. Some powerful descriptive prose. Lots to think about, not including the mystery! Set in Sarajevo towards the end of the war. Or at least that’s my feel, I can’t remember if the when is stated outright, and I confess that during those years I was a distracted, working mommy and my husband was in grad school full time, working full time, with a minimum 25 hours in the car commuting so who knows.
My overall take away - decent mystery with a surprise twist set in a time and place I feel I should know more about, yet doubt I will ever understand, and am so grateful I did not have to personally experience.
My overall take away - decent mystery with a surprise twist set in a time and place I feel I should know more about, yet doubt I will ever understand, and am so grateful I did not have to personally experience.
April 27, 2017
روااية حزينة.. :(
بتحكي عن حرب البوسنة خاصة مدينة ساراييفو..
القصة عن رئيس ضباط التحري بالمدينة ومحاولته لتحقيق العدالة في المدينة رغم الحرب المستعرة..
بتحكي عن حرب البوسنة خاصة مدينة ساراييفو..
القصة عن رئيس ضباط التحري بالمدينة ومحاولته لتحقيق العدالة في المدينة رغم الحرب المستعرة..
April 6, 2020
It’s a mystery to me why this book isn’t on more top 10 thriller lists. I’ve kept the original hardcover edition I got in 1996, and re-read this every few years as a reminder of what even flawed and damaged people can be capable of in desperate times. It's set in Sarajevo during the civil war, and the main character is Croatian Police Superintendent Rosso, and he and what's left of his local police force are trying to solve the murder of one of his Serbian informants. One reason I think it's superb is because of how accurately you feel the despair, dirtiness and danger of living under siege, but also the dark humour and pragmatic adaptation of people who have nowhere else to go. The most awful characters are capable of surprising moments of humanity, and the ending still moves me to tears no matter how many times I read it. It also kills me that there's no print edition available!!
April 7, 2012
The Monkey House is bleak, harsh. The setting is Sarajevo during Bosnian war in the 90's. The descriptions of wartime existence in the city are pretty riveting, and they are the strongest parts of the book. There's shooting and mortars and kidnapping. But just as bad or worse is the lack of so many practical things you take for granted every day: food, warmth, shelter, water, toilets, a dang shower, etc. These "reality" parts reminded me of "The Road" where Cormac so wonderfully describes how hard living without all this stuff really is. He's no Cormac, but Fullerton's writing style is top notch as well.
QOTD
Wasn't he hungry, she asked, flustered. It must have been ages since he last ate and what time did he leave for the airport in the morning - she used words and questions like the clouds of metal strips dispersed by aircraft to deceive ground radar, bombarding him with them, showering him with fragments of sentiment.
- The Monkey House, Rosso's alcoholic wife
Another fave is how Fullerton intertwines the large and small scale effects of the war. Much of the book describes the war, but he also focuses in on the messed-up personal life of our hero, Rosso. Rosso's wife has lost it and crawled in a bottle. His god-daughter is sleeping with the worst mobster in town. His job is disintegrating. He stinks and he's peeing off the balcony of his condo. (Cha!) Now that's a bad day. Rosso's struggle is a microcosm of Sarajevo's struggle.
I don't know diddly about the Bosnian war, so it wasn't easy to follow all the actors. The plot is a bit uneven, and it felt like an author's first effort. I read the jacket, and this is Fullerton's first novel. I guess he is a war correspondent, so the grunge and violence in his description of the war come from experience.
QOTD2
The policeman saw then that the Serb's brain had fallen out because the rear of the skull had been sheared clean off, and it lay almost intact on the ground, skin and hair still attached. Rosso thought of a coconut, cracked open on a stone. Either the Serb hadn't worn his helmet when he was hit or it had provided no protection worth having. A kitten was feeding on the grey and pink matter, pawing at it and licking it, its tiny tongue lapping at sticky mucus. The animal looked up as the three men drew nearer. It skittered away, almost playfully.
- The Monkey House
An excellent read! Thank you, Comrade.
QOTD
Wasn't he hungry, she asked, flustered. It must have been ages since he last ate and what time did he leave for the airport in the morning - she used words and questions like the clouds of metal strips dispersed by aircraft to deceive ground radar, bombarding him with them, showering him with fragments of sentiment.
- The Monkey House, Rosso's alcoholic wife
Another fave is how Fullerton intertwines the large and small scale effects of the war. Much of the book describes the war, but he also focuses in on the messed-up personal life of our hero, Rosso. Rosso's wife has lost it and crawled in a bottle. His god-daughter is sleeping with the worst mobster in town. His job is disintegrating. He stinks and he's peeing off the balcony of his condo. (Cha!) Now that's a bad day. Rosso's struggle is a microcosm of Sarajevo's struggle.
I don't know diddly about the Bosnian war, so it wasn't easy to follow all the actors. The plot is a bit uneven, and it felt like an author's first effort. I read the jacket, and this is Fullerton's first novel. I guess he is a war correspondent, so the grunge and violence in his description of the war come from experience.
QOTD2
The policeman saw then that the Serb's brain had fallen out because the rear of the skull had been sheared clean off, and it lay almost intact on the ground, skin and hair still attached. Rosso thought of a coconut, cracked open on a stone. Either the Serb hadn't worn his helmet when he was hit or it had provided no protection worth having. A kitten was feeding on the grey and pink matter, pawing at it and licking it, its tiny tongue lapping at sticky mucus. The animal looked up as the three men drew nearer. It skittered away, almost playfully.
- The Monkey House
An excellent read! Thank you, Comrade.
February 5, 2010
This was my second reading of this book. Fortunately, I seem to have forgotten the plot, so managed to enjoy it afresh. While I do need to get my head around the history of the whole awful Serb/Croat/Bosnian thing, the storyline captured me through these historical gaps all the way to the very good twist in the end.
July 5, 2013
A murder mystery set in the charnel house of Sarajevo at the height of the Bosnian war. Police Superintendent Rosso, an ethnic Croat, investigates the murder of a Serb dentist. The author was a war correspondent in Bosnia and brings the conflict in all it's horror to life. A good read but you will require a fairly strong stomach.
October 4, 2014
قرأت الترجمة العربية لجورج جحا، 2013.
كتاب رائع يروي مأساة حرب البوسنة، وساراييفو خاصة، عبر قصة ضابط الشرطة الذي يحاول تحقيق العدالة في عالم من الكراهية والموت.
كتاب رائع يروي مأساة حرب البوسنة، وساراييفو خاصة، عبر قصة ضابط الشرطة الذي يحاول تحقيق العدالة في عالم من الكراهية والموت.
August 6, 2018
A good book, not so much a thriller or about a murder. Much more about the Bosnian war era and Sarejevo.
June 15, 2018
Sarajevo during the civil war.
End in coral tragedy.
Interesting the atmosphere and the description of the city inferno at that time.
The investigative main story about a homicide of a serbian odontoiatist by a war lord is not good at all.
The family description of the main novel character (Rosso): son of a famous and infamous war criminal, member of the local police, is so uselessly clear-cut: wife serbian, him croatian, the adopted daughter a muslim.
A rapid and almost forgetting reading.
End in coral tragedy.
Interesting the atmosphere and the description of the city inferno at that time.
The investigative main story about a homicide of a serbian odontoiatist by a war lord is not good at all.
The family description of the main novel character (Rosso): son of a famous and infamous war criminal, member of the local police, is so uselessly clear-cut: wife serbian, him croatian, the adopted daughter a muslim.
A rapid and almost forgetting reading.
June 13, 2019
An excellent fictional introduction to a hellish situation. This genre, investigation of murders in war zones, has become quite a thing.
June 16, 2019
Better than a le Carre novel, this is seriously good.
March 18, 2021
In theory a crime novel but actually I held onto it and now reread it because it is a great picture of chaotic war-torn Sarajevo, of the compromises people have to make in those circumstances, and the costs. Strong mastery of relevant, specific detail that makes it vivid and real.
November 11, 2023
This is a story not for the faint hearted. It's a war story ~ set in Sarajevo, Bosnia in the early 1990's and it was a dark, disturbing, dirty and dangerous tale about war. People were living with bombs reigning down on them, grenades, tanks on streets, rifle fire and it is just hell on earth. Set amongst all the carnage of war was a policeman (Rosso) trying to do right with his alcoholic wife, his adult aged god-daughter Tanja and an American war journalist Flett acting tough, but who was scared out of his mind.
What caught this reader's attention was how well it was written and the great, realistic powerful prose used by the author, John Fullerton. Here are some random examples included:
"The war had been good to all the wrong people". A clear refernece to the mafia and the people who could take advance of the defenceless, the vulnerable and the weak in times of war. p.128.
The value of cigarettes in war: "A single container of cigarettes could buy a twenty minute respite from Serb artillery, a truce to exchange prisoners or recover the dead". This was power. p.147
A picture of war: The bodies lay strewn together on the ground "as if the dead had crowded together for some company". p.168.
It was a war story that spanned only four days, but what a four days it was. Written in barely 300 pages, but it felt more like 400 because the writing drew this reader in causing him to slow right down to savour the writing. This person often read the text word for word and paragraph by paragraph. But also, and just as importantly, this reader didn't know where the story was heading. It didn't seem to have a clear direction or did it? The writer had kept a very clever twist up his sleeve that completely caught this person off guard. Always a good strategy!
It was not perfect, however, because the ending did make this person wonder, whether or not Rosso really would have chose such a decision or not. But, in any case, a fine effort. FOUR STARS.
Some other similar authors include the likes of: Tom Bradby's, 'Yesterday's Spy' which is a spy novel also based in Iran during 1953; Simon Conway, Gerald Seymour (particularly his earlier work), Alan Furst, Philip Kerr, Andy McNab and Joseph Cannon to name just a few.
NON FICTION:
1. 'Nato in the Balkans' by Voices of Opposition: The International Action Center, 1998;
2.'Yugoslavia: Peace, War, and Dissolution' by Noam Chomsky (Author), Davor Džalto (Editor), Andrej Grubačić (Preface). Kindle Edition. 2018.
3. 'Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting', February 1, 2005 by Peter Brock (Author). Kindle Edition. All are difficult reads about nationalism and ethnic cleansing.
What caught this reader's attention was how well it was written and the great, realistic powerful prose used by the author, John Fullerton. Here are some random examples included:
"The war had been good to all the wrong people". A clear refernece to the mafia and the people who could take advance of the defenceless, the vulnerable and the weak in times of war. p.128.
The value of cigarettes in war: "A single container of cigarettes could buy a twenty minute respite from Serb artillery, a truce to exchange prisoners or recover the dead". This was power. p.147
A picture of war: The bodies lay strewn together on the ground "as if the dead had crowded together for some company". p.168.
It was a war story that spanned only four days, but what a four days it was. Written in barely 300 pages, but it felt more like 400 because the writing drew this reader in causing him to slow right down to savour the writing. This person often read the text word for word and paragraph by paragraph. But also, and just as importantly, this reader didn't know where the story was heading. It didn't seem to have a clear direction or did it? The writer had kept a very clever twist up his sleeve that completely caught this person off guard. Always a good strategy!
It was not perfect, however, because the ending did make this person wonder, whether or not Rosso really would have chose such a decision or not. But, in any case, a fine effort. FOUR STARS.
Some other similar authors include the likes of: Tom Bradby's, 'Yesterday's Spy' which is a spy novel also based in Iran during 1953; Simon Conway, Gerald Seymour (particularly his earlier work), Alan Furst, Philip Kerr, Andy McNab and Joseph Cannon to name just a few.
NON FICTION:
1. 'Nato in the Balkans' by Voices of Opposition: The International Action Center, 1998;
2.'Yugoslavia: Peace, War, and Dissolution' by Noam Chomsky (Author), Davor Džalto (Editor), Andrej Grubačić (Preface). Kindle Edition. 2018.
3. 'Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting', February 1, 2005 by Peter Brock (Author). Kindle Edition. All are difficult reads about nationalism and ethnic cleansing.
February 9, 2024
Weird enough, I stumbled on The Monkey House just a little after having finished Lie In The Dark; the parallels between the two books are quite surprising: both set in the Sarajevo at the time of the Yugoslavian war, both rather bleak, both written by journalists who had been there reporting on the war.
And in both books the focus is on a police detective investigating a murder in the middle of a war, which might look like the fixation of an eccentric (a theme also in Luke McCallin's excellent novels)
Murder in time of war; a detective looking for a killer while people are killed in the thousands by bullets, bombs and shells.
And there's more to war than meets the eye: the tragic events of the balkans are the breeding ground of sleaze, corruption, treachery flourishing in the underbelly of the starved city.
A gloomy setting for a gloomy story; the author earns the merit of striking a good balance between being informative about the intricate historical context while remaining engaging on the fictional side.
And in both books the focus is on a police detective investigating a murder in the middle of a war, which might look like the fixation of an eccentric (a theme also in Luke McCallin's excellent novels)
Murder in time of war; a detective looking for a killer while people are killed in the thousands by bullets, bombs and shells.
And there's more to war than meets the eye: the tragic events of the balkans are the breeding ground of sleaze, corruption, treachery flourishing in the underbelly of the starved city.
A gloomy setting for a gloomy story; the author earns the merit of striking a good balance between being informative about the intricate historical context while remaining engaging on the fictional side.
April 3, 2013
A tightly written plot, a good story, but so bleak and depressing.
For those who like thrillers with characters you can care about this is a good one. Set in the almost aftermath of the Bosnian/Serbian war it's an eye opener. The UN gets a hammering and our MC is a real hero. But this is not the book for a cheering read, it is a darned good read though.
For those who like thrillers with characters you can care about this is a good one. Set in the almost aftermath of the Bosnian/Serbian war it's an eye opener. The UN gets a hammering and our MC is a real hero. But this is not the book for a cheering read, it is a darned good read though.
March 19, 2013
The book can be described in one word ..CONFUSING. I read it until the end because I am trying to understand more about Sarajevo. FInished it as confused as I started. The crime plot was somewhat interesting and great descriptions of the life during the siege.
November 20, 2019
Eye opening about the harsh realities of war. A novel written by a war correspondent. This is a revealing look at war from the civilians point of view and those surviving by any means necessary. Sad, depressing, bleak, as one would expect, but an interesting tale woven within.
May 26, 2015
Boring
September 17, 2015
The book is a harsh read. I enjoyed the story and the harsh nature of it was, I believe, true to the environment the book was set in. I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone that I know though!
October 31, 2020
The description of Sarajevo is spot on in this novel.
February 18, 2015
تستحق القراءه
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews