Petr Sagitarius
Petr Sagitarius (b. 1966) was born in Třinec as a Czech with Polish roots. In 2014, he started a blog, which helped him find his literary voice. He wrote his first crime novel in 2017 – and is working on the seventh part in the series already. His fictitious stories take place in real settings the author is intimately familiar with. All are connected through the intertwining storylines of the characters.
Trujkunt
October 2020, 352 pages
Available material: English sample
A crime story about a detective as quirky and jaunty as the district he serves
Trujkunt is a peculiar area in the easternmost corner of the Czech Republic. Located near the tri-national border of Czechia, Poland and Slovakia, it has a distinct culture and Czech-Polish language. It is a strongly religious region inhabited by the descendants of young men who were drafted by the Wehrmacht during World War II, who remain scarred by the division of the Těšín-Silesia region. The conditions that shaped this area are evident in the mentality of locals.
Roman Saran, a quirky major in the Department of Criminal Investigation in Ostrava, deals with murders marked by unusual circumstances in this cleverly-structured, highly readable crime novel.
From the sample translation
Roman Saran was a fighter by nature. The rumbling R’s in his name should be enough of a warning to anyone who considered picking a fight with him. If he got punched, he never backed up; he would always get up and hit back twice. He was a mere 5′ 7″ tall, but his shoulders were wide and his body lean and muscular. Thanks to his unruly blonde hair, he had been cherubic as a child, but those days were long gone: his hair was still fair, but a twice-broken nose canceled out his angelic look in a way that impressed anyone he interrogated. His sky-blue eyes were another powerful weapon in his arsenal. Just like he never ducked in a fight, he never dodged anyone’s look. Depending on the situation, Saran’s eyes posed one of two questions to his challenger: the first one being, “Do you really think I’m an idiot?” And the second, “Sure you wanna fight me?” Both were highly effective. His colleagues respected him for his tenacity and quick mind.