Half detective novel, half love story, half psychoanalytic case study, *Malina* is an astonishing portrait of a writer attempting to tell her own story in a world dominated by men. A woman in post-war Vienna walks a tightrope between the two men in her life. There is her lover, Ivan -- handsome and inaccessible -- who obsesses over her. And there is Malina, the civil servant with whom she shares an apartment: reserved, fastidious, demanding, and chillingly calm. As the balance of power between them begins to shift, she feels her fragile identity crumbling, gradually revealing the dark, wounded heart of her past.