The Thermal Bath Detective

Every morning at six, former inspector László Kertész takes the same corner of the Széchenyi baths. Retirement suits him better than anyone expected, including him.

Then a man is found drowned in the warmest pool, and the police arrest a suspect who was, Kertész happens to know, playing chess forty metres away at the time.

He conducts the entire investigation from the water. The regulars, the masseurs, the chess players, the woman who has worked the ticket window since 1989: everyone comes to him, because everyone comes to the baths eventually. Yellow columns, clouds of steam, and a crime that has been hiding inside a daily routine for thirty years.