By Sándor Kalai

Vilmos Kondor is (possibly the pseudonym of) a Hungarian crime fiction writer, who is internationally well known due to the translations of the first novel of his series, Budapest noir. The series relates the adventures of a journalist called Zsigmond Gordon from the 1930s till the revolution of 1956. Kondor mentions amongst his main influencers Jim Thompson, Dashiell Hammett and Charles Willeford. In the five novels of the series we can find not only the roman noir’s recurring themes (violence, corruption) and the evocation of the urban life of Budapest, but the author is also inspired by its poetics (behaviourist narrative).

The original Vilmos Kondor books in Hungarian

English Translation

Italian Translation

German Translation