Waldkauz

The earth trembles, darkness emerges from within people, and the age of humanity is upon us.

It is August 1920. Upper Silesia is in turmoil. Polish mixes with German, and the Silesian dialect with the English and French spoken by Allied soldiers. A distraught woman arrives at the office of Wilhelm Pisulla, an ex-wachmeister with the Gliwice criminal police and now a private investigator for the firm Detektiv-Lux. She is looking for her child. But she is not who she claims to be, nor is he an ordinary detective. For Pisulla has two souls, and the other one — the unbaptized one — has never howled so loudly. Only milk and cognac can calm her. Thanks to them, the raging voice, taking the form of a waldkauz (a tawny owl), sets out on a subtle hunt, only to return later to the man abandoned by his family. Pisulla’s son, Franz, went missing in the war, and his wife left, taking their younger son, Karliczek, with her. All that remained for Wilhelm was Wendelin Draga, his closest childhood friend and a man with too many secrets.

Waldkauz is a story full of mysteries, a story about male friendship and duties toward loved ones, about redemption, love, and what lurks in the darkness — separated from our world by only a thin, semi-permeable membrane. Wilhelm Pisulla understands the language of birds and speaks with drowners, but even he cannot find his son, who was devoured by the beast of war.

The descritpion comes from the publisher’s website.