Set in Split in 1992. The war in Croatia is in full swing. Split resembles Saigon, a city in which life is apparently normal, but part of that normality is also made up of detonations heard from behind the horizon, refugees, and soldiers on leave.
One night, a group of soldiers decides to avenge the killed commander and plants explosive to the house owned by a Serb butcher. The proprietor is killed, but the event is, contrary to plan, witnessed by his daughter.
Krešo is a war veteran who has lost his leg, bitter and disappointed. Galjer is an old journalist of crime section whose wife has just been diagnosed for cancer. Matić is a successful doctor with political ambitions. Lidija is a research journalist who believes the newspapers to be able to put things right.
The destinies of these four people will intertwine with that of a little girl hidden in a tyre-repair garage, waiting to be either set free or killed.
Split Confidential… Ovce od gipsa is definitely one of the most important Croatian books of the nineties…
Robert Perišić, Feral Tribune
His story is clever, powerful, nauseating and, much to our dismay, so very Croatian!
Dunja Dragojević, Radio 101
A social analysis sharp as a knife… I take my hat off to you, colleague!
Michael Zeller, Nuernberger Nachrichten
Crime and punishment, spiritual wasteland and a glimmer of hope – a crime masterpiece from Croatia!
Facts, Switzerland
While the classic hero of the Croatian military stories represents a feeble subject with whom the narrator wants to share his helplessness, Pavičić…is trying to observe the warrior audacity of his own generation, as well as to take responsibility for the unpleasant dream following the battle.
Vlaho Bogišić, Vijenac
Ovce od gipsa possesses all the makings of a good thriller.
Jagna Pogačnik, Vjesnik
It takes someone with a ’streak’ to be able to carry such a heavy social and psychological burden to its destination in such a light thriller shell.
Strahimir Primorac, Večernji list
The finale, a morning episode taking place in a sky-high city rubbish dump is indeed masterful in every respect!… Juirca Pavičić represents the most interesting spot within the context of Croatian fiction written by the authors who sought acclaim in the (post)-war nineties.
Delimir Rešicki, Glas Slavonije
Novel on hatred, rage, shame, guilt and repent- which refuses to be absolutly bleak, and spreads a bit of hope. It's worth reading.
gunnar walters (Kaliber 17)
In the novel, the author aims to describe what war does to the people and what are people, blinded by difused anger and selfserving hate, capable to do. The way how author stages the consequences of rabid nationalism seems as a hidden premonition, in a contemporary Europe.
Thomas Lawall, Lovelybooks, querblatt
