Written in 1985 but only translated from Czech in 2015, Innocence is a noir-ish murder mystery set in 1950s Prague during a period in which ordinary citizens lived in fear of being denounced to the State Security by their friends and neighbors. Kovaly lived through this period which saw the execution of her husband for 'anti-state conspiracy;' she supported herself by translating many authors, most notably Raymond Chandler, on whose style Innocence is clearly based.
A child is murdered in a movie theater, and then the investigating officer turns up dead soon after. The cinema's female ushers all have motives and opportunities. A fairly ordinary mystery made interesting for the flavor it gives of of monotonous lives punctuated by occasional flashes of terror.
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