Bűnös Budapest Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| A budapesti gengszter | - | N/A |
| Szélhámos Budapest | - | N/A |
| Budapest Noir | 2008 | Buy |
| Bűnös Budapest | 2010 | N/A |
| A budapesti kém | 2010 | N/A |
| Budapest romokban | 2011 | N/A |
| Budapest novemberben | 2012 | N/A |
Vilmos Kondor is a pseudonym. The author has never revealed his real name, does not participate in Hungarian literary life, and gives interviews only rarely and by email. What is known is that he studied in Szeged and later in Paris, where he earned a degree in chemical engineering from the Sorbonne. He went on to teach mathematics and physics at a secondary school.
His seven crime novels featuring journalist Zsigmond Gordon are set in Budapest from the 1930s through the 1950s, a period of political turmoil, occupation, and transformation. Kondor brought the hard-boiled genre to Hungarian literature for the first time, adapting its conventions to the specific social and historical conditions of interwar and wartime Hungary.
Critics in Hungary welcomed Budapest Noir as the first true hard-boiled crime novel written in Hungarian. Beyond the Gordon series, Kondor has written a trilogy of historical thrillers involving the Holy Crown of Hungary and a trilogy of contemporary police procedurals featuring Detective Tibor Ferenczy.