Layered, moody, and deeply immersive.
In Badgley’s taut literary thriller, an art conservator’s research draws her into a deadly game of history and myth. With war creeping toward Sarajevo, American conservator Miri Adler sets out to document the fabled Sarajevo Haggadah, a book that has survived centuries of turmoil. Her orderly project unravels as shimmering letters, shifting images, and an impossible thirty-fifth page draw her into a realm where folklore overtakes history and a Balkan curse presses toward awakening.
Badgley layers historical suspense with a subtle supernatural current. Sarajevo in the final months before war is rendered with heartbreaking clarity: the smell of woodsmoke and cardamom coffee in the market, the suddenness with which barricades appear and neighbors vanish. The book draws its power from stark juxtapositions—centuries-old pages in a room of controlled light, gunfire cracking through the streets beyond. Miri’s work becomes a metaphor for fragile survival, each stain carrying echoes of forgotten lives. Badgley’s quiet touch with magical realism keeps the mystery credible, while driving home a harder truth: art survives, but memory is always at risk of being erased.
A steady, slow-burn thriller that lands with quiet force.
Coming soon
