1 part Complete MatureALBANIA, 1948.
There is a rift in the socialist camp. Yugoslavia is expelled from COMINFORM. Albania splits from Yugoslavia and repledges allegiance to USSR.
Tracts are being dispersed in Shkoder, most anti-communist city in the country, and Colonel Kapllani, chief of internal affairs branch, must solve the matter quickly. He puts pressure to one of his young subordinates, Zef, to find the culprits. To his shock, the Zef reveals (in blasé fashion) who's behind the whole thing; Pjeter Grima, the chief's second-in-command, rising star in the State Security, and Zef's best friend.
The furious chief puts both friends under arrest. They are viciously tortured by their former colleagues. During their trial (broadcasted live on radio and via loudspeakers), Pjeter, faced with a 23-year sentence, exposes their involvement in the largest BLACK OP in the country, orchestrated by the government, executed to perfection by they themselves. It shakes the establishment to the bone, bringing the downfall of many, causing the trials to be held behind closed doors from then on. Pjeter's prison sentence is quickly commuted to death sentence...
The book investigates the backstory of the two mates (both fatherless, in love with the same woman), the causes of their quarrel and their strange path to spiritual redemption.
Parallelly, it deals with two important events in Albanian history, one of them being the notorious BLACK OP during which heavy weaponry was hidden in the Franciscan Monastery of Shkoder by State Security forces. The friars were tried for 'insurrection' and executed. Their heroic endurance has become the stuff of legends. It led to the gradual transformation of the protagonists...
