Babel

Even barbed-wire fences cannot stop migration and terrorism. Everything is possible when descending into the Babelic chaos of our current world. Marco Boretti, the Hungarian-Italian archaeologist would not have thought that his profession gave him a central role amidst the European mass migration crisis in a complex and prolific art smuggling case where everything was different than it seemed. The researcher becomes a treasure hunter, the workers of a relief organization turn out to be human traffickers, and the weapon manufacturer manages to become the confidante of a power-hungry Prime Minister. In his latest novel covering scenes from the turmoil of the Syrian Civil War through the watery grave of the Mediterranean to the elegant chalets of the American elite, Tamás Frei, the famous Hungarian writer and journalist cast light on the maneuvers to seize power by a shameless politician, and also reflects on the cynicism of the most influential men of the western world who finance Islam terrorism from their villas full of blood-stained pieces of art. The story provides a shocking glimpse inside the motivations and workings of the rising populist politicians and how they achieve their goals through fearmongering, manipulation and when everything else fails, violence. Babel is a painfully relevant and frightening book and also a real page-turner.