The Small Boat Of Great Sorrows

Apr 21, 2025 1:13 PM

Author:Dan Fesperman,Sean Barrett

Vlado Petric, former detective in war-torn Sarajevo, has left his beloved homeland to join his wife and daughter in Germany, where he scratches a meagre living in the building sites of the new Berlin.

When Petric returns to work one evening, he finds an enigmatic American investigator waiting for him in the small apartment he and his wife share. The investigator (Pine) works for the International War Crimes Tribunal, and he tells Petric that they want him to return to Croatia. It doesn't take Petric long to accept, especially when Pine tells him they are after a big fish: the man whom they think is responsible for a terrible massacre in Srebrenica. What Petric doesn't know is that he is also being used as a bait to lure a murderer from the previous generation into the open; a man whose activities in the Second World War makes the current generation of killers look like amateurs.

The Small Boat of Great Sorrows is a wonderful, thought-provoking, gripping novel; crime in so much as it needs a label, international thriller in its scope and narrative drive. Like John Le Carre and Robert Harris, Fesperman moves seamlessly between time schemes as the past informs and impacts on the present - and nowhere is this more evident than in the Balkans with its traumatic history. In Fesperman, we have a quality author, writing novels packed with authentic detail, and characters who are totally believable.

Reviews

The best first thriller I have read since The Day of the Jackal, and that was a long time ago. With one mightly bound Tom Cain has vaulted over Archer and Grisham and stands close on Freddie Forsyth's tail

—— Wilbur Smith

Audacious, authentic, full of tension and tradecraft... maybe it's true and maybe it isn't, but either way it is a great thriller read

—— Lee Child

The most audacious and timely thriller in years

—— Daily Mirror

Fast-moving, cleverly constructed and very readable

—— Daily Mail

Like the Bourne movies meets Frederick Forsyth

—— Guardian

Reading The Accident Man is an exhausting, exhilarating and utterly enjoyable experience. That Cain manages to gain, and maintain, our sympathies for Carver - the hired assassin responsible for the death of the Princess of Wales - is quite a feat in itself. Yes, it's escapist stuff, yet somehow entirely believable. I strongly urge you to read this book. It's a perfect thriller

—— crimesquad.com

Forget Tony Blair's memoirs, for most people the new Lee Child is the most anticipated book of the year. And with good reason... this is Child on fine form

—— Shortlist

A master craftsman of action thrillers. More than just compulsively readable, Mr Child's work shows a perfectly-fashioned understanding of his protagonist, dogged and moralistic. Reacher may get old some time, but he's sure not showing any signs of it

—— Wall Street Journal

Adrenaline-fuelled adventure... He knows exactly how to press all the buttons... yet another awesome performance

—— Evening Standard

Reacher is vengeance personified, a walking, fighting revenge fantasy... what he normally chooses to do is right wrongs and defend the weak against the forces of oppression... Characteristically, Child drives the plot like a rally car, a hair-raising ride careering down the route a break-neck speed... Lee Child's loyal fans know only too well that those who enter his Reacher tales have no reason to abandon hope. Quite the opposite and Worth Dying For is no exception

—— Sunday Express

It looked like Lee Child cheekily killed off the seemingly unstoppable Jack Reacher in his last book - but no. Reacher is battered but upright- still the thinking man's action hero, supreme butt-kicker and smartest guy in the room... [another] hell-for-leather story

—— Seattle Times

A model of suspenseful storytelling and an outstanding addition to a series that stands in the front rank of modern thrillers

—— Washington Post

Child's gift for pacing makes it almost impossible to start one of his novels without finishing. Worth Dying For is grade-A escapism

—— Independent on Sunday (Books of the Year)

Child presses all the buttons... Another awesome performance

—— Mark Sanderson , The Scotsman

Brings a shock of moral horror that is unprecedented in Reacher novels

—— Toronto Star

Utterly compelling... one of Child's best. He keeps up the lightning pace, great writing and punchy one-liners throughout

—— Daily Express

A contender for top thriller of 2010

—— Sun (Best books of 2010)

A turbo-charged page-flipper: you're on page 300 before you take a breath...Child is a master of distances, spaces and the physics of opposing forces

—— The Scotsman

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