Ranging through a history of changing empires, monarchies, countries, regimes, religions, down to the disappearing shop-fronts and street names, Hungary is always there, through the Millennium celebrations over a century ago, amid the exhausted last days of communism, and even under today's "illiberal democracy". "A vast, sprawling novel linking a meticulously plotted jewel theft in 1896 Budapest to the impulsive crime of passion that sinks...