Harlequinade is a dark love story set against the ghastly landscape of the communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. Unlike many other novels with the same theme, it does not hover poetically over surreal images of hunger and physical misery. The desolate landscape of communist Romania is the background of an intense and fast-paced story. Harlequinade opens a door into a dangerous world of random violence and indifference to the individual human destiny. It takes the reader into the very fortress of terror - the Romanian secret police (known as "Securitate"). The characters are strong and marked by hybris. In a world that has nothing to offer they covet everything: love, power, freedom, truth, and they are ready to pay the ultimate price for their dreams.
Harlequinade is also a love story - a dark love story set against the last years of the communist dictatorship in Romania, at the height of Ceausescu’s reign of terror. The glamorous lifestyle of the communist elite is highlighted against the anguished lives of ordinary people as the young, diabolical and charismatic officer of the Securitate (Romania’s feared secret police), Paul Roman, falls in love with Lia Darian, a celebrated middle aged actress whose past hides a terrible secret. She is married to a dissenter who believes his struggle against the communist machine can make a difference. Their student daughter, Victoria, is almost destroyed when the destinies of her parents and the secret police officer collide. A homosexual minister who is the right hand of the president himself, an old and corrupt hardline politician pursuing revenge, a couple of decent and kind communists who adopt a half-mad child from an orphanage, a compassionate doctor - they all become lost in the maze of lies and cruelty at the core of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. As suffering, betrayal and death spread dark wings over their lives, the wounded survivors are forced to undergo an agonizing and cathartic transformation. Some of them perish but some find the light at the end of the tunnel.
