Pavel & I: A Novel - Softcover

Dan Vyleta is the son of Czech refugees who emigrated to Germany in the late 1960s. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge, and lives and works in Canada. This is his first novel.

"Pavel and I, (Bloomsbury, 344 pp., $24.95), a debut by Dan Vyleta, spools out moodily in post-World War II Berlin. Pavel Richter, who worked for the Americans during the war, now suffers from poverty and a painful kidney infection. He nurses a hopeless love for Sonia, the prostitute downstairs. He carries on an odd friendship with a young urchin who knows too many secrets. When an American friend, Boyd White, mysteriously appears in Pavel's coldwater flat to deliver a dead Russian dwarf's body for safekeeping, things get a lot worse. White ends up tortured and killed, and Pavel is cornered by a government interrogator. Their relationship evolves into a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, where the two men - on bitter, opposite sides - develop a mutual affection that fails to soften the menace of their sessions together. The novel is grotesque, sometimes funny, and completely chilling, a wonderful re-creation of the Europe of 1946. Dan Vyleta is a name to watch." --Les Roberts, "Cleveland Plain Dealer"

"Impressive...There is a lot to admire about Pavel & I. As a thriller, it is highly admirable. Like most mysteries, literary and cinematic, this one grows complex nearly to the point of irritation; but unlike most, this one is entirely logical, andevery dead body is accounted for...Readers in search of a good story will find one here." --Roger K. Miller, "Denver Post"

"A tremendous first novel that will gather accolades like shards of broken glass littering the once-fashionable Kurfurstendamm. PAVEL AND I is not to be missed." --Bill Webb, "I Love a Mystery"

“DAN VYLETA’S PAVEL & I (Bloomsbury, $24.95) has plenty of plot (including a dead midget in a suitcase), a crowd of desperate characters (including a whore with a heart of tarnished gold) and an unusual narrative scheme—but most of all, it has atmosphere, a vividly rendered time and place: Berlin in the frigid winter of 1946-47, rubble, starvation and no brakes on anyone’s instinct for self-preservation.” —Adam Begley, "New York Observer"

“Pavel and I, (Bloomsbury, 344 pp., $24.95), a debut by Dan Vyleta, spools out moodily in post-World War II Berlin. Pavel Richter, who worked for the Americans during the war, now suffers from poverty and a painful kidney infection. He nurses a hopeless love for Sonia, the prostitute downstairs. He carries on an odd friendship with a young urchin who knows too many secrets. When an American friend, Boyd White, mysteriously appears in Pavel's coldwater flat to deliver a dead Russian dwarf's body for sa