FRACTUS EUROPA

An anthology of short stories chronicles the splintering face of contemporary Europe.

This collection of tales, set in the backrooms and alleys of Europe, presents a continent that has never been more interconnected—and perhaps never in so much danger of coming apart. In Constantine Bouchagiar’s “Shifting Syrian Sands,” a Syrian in Germany sets out to help his fellow refugees, though as he grows more successful, his actions become less altruistic. Preston Smith offers “The Promised Land,” a spy thriller set in Latvia’s border with Russia, where a former Riga police officer investigating a human trafficking syndicate finds more trouble than he bargained for. In Graham Thomas’ “Beaches and Banks,” two expatriate bankers living in Cyprus find themselves working for the same firm. It should be great—they are drinking buddies, after all—until Tom Graham discovers some suspicious practices being carried out by his friend Bob Anastasi. In “Prose and Politics,” Nick Eaden imagines a Scottish politician who thinks he’s finally found an economic solution to his country’s independence from England: previously undiscovered fuel reserves in the North Sea. Unless, of course, the information is just a trick of Russian hackers. The collection’s authors, by and large, are not known for their fiction. Instead, they are journalists, academics, and other experts from the world of international affairs. This gives the book, edited by Anderson and Dunn, a different feel from your average thriller: The details are exact, the structures surprising, and the pacing a bit slower than readers might expect. Even the lengths of the tales—often 30 pages or more—vary from normal short fiction fare. Some are better than others—Thomas’ and Smith’s stories are the standouts—but all provide a provocative window into some corner of contemporary European life that Americans, in particular, are unlikely to have spent much time considering. The foreword and the afterword are both concerned with threats to democracy across the continent, and many of the tales hint darkly at future problems. Whether readers share similar fears or are just looking for stories full of international intrigue, they will find much to enjoy in this wide-ranging anthology.

A country-hopping collection of engaging, high-stakes tales by Europe watchers.