Good news!
The Half-Handed Robber has been published in electronic form on the e-konyv.hu website, at a friendly price.
For those who prefer to hold the printed book in their hands, I recommend the KönyvGardrób store. It can be purchased online on this website.
There are still a few pieces left in stock.
My third novel was published in November 2022:
The Half-Handed Robber
A review by Stephanie Ford and Emese Városi was published on the moly.hu website on September 13, 2023.
The novel was also written about on the blog "The Librarian Reads" in early December. The "Librarian" looked at the story of The Half-Handed Robber from a different perspective, but found it just as exciting as the author above. Interestingly, she didn't like the cover. I'm starting to give up, but I admit, for me like it. Click HERE!
A possible subtitle:
The main character of the novel, Dávid Fehér, was a successful fencer until 2010, a contender for the world championship gold medal, which he lost due to a misstep. He joins the French Foreign Legion in shame. After five years of heroic service, he moves back home to his parents. His father, locksmith Imre Fehér, wants Dávid to join the business with his saved salary due to a large-scale order. His son says no, and even tries to talk his father out of the project. They have a nasty fight. Dávid buys an apartment and takes part in a firearms training course, then travels to Afghanistan to clear mines. He only keeps in touch with his mother, who doesn't dare admit to him that Dávid was right. Her husband did the work, but the investor didn't pay him. Therefore, they could not repay the foreign currency loan, and the bank auctioned off their house and the locksmith shop.
The parents became homeless. On a forest walk, they were attacked by three young skinheads. Imre deals with the baseball bat transmitter, while his wife settles the other two in a peculiar way. The Fehér couple decide to look for work in Austria because they fear retaliation from the neo-fascists. Neither of them knew that the young people had fulfilled an assignment.
The shadow of the past takes shape in the form of a wealthy money launderer, whose thirst for revenge knows no bounds. Dávid travels home from Afghanistan due to his serious injury. He learns from his old family friend, Tamás Fekete, what happened to his parents. He prepares for a counterattack.
Money Launderer Mr. Reiniger has a large fortune and extensive connections. Dávid devises a precise plan against him. The pandemic protocol gives him the idea for his idea. In the operations, he can count on the son of his former legionnaire sergeant, a talented hacker living in Paris, and his childhood friend, car mechanic Sanyi Fekete.
Dávid has never stolen even ten forints from anyone in his life. Now, however, he wants to take a huge sum from Reiniger's bank. The robbery does not end as he planned. The investigators are hot on Dávid's heels.
The amount taken did not make the money bag bleed, it only enraged him. Based on the fragments of information, Reiniger figures out the identity of the mysterious bank robber and takes a very harsh step. This forces Dávid to take a step that cannot bring a draw...
The cover of the novel unfolded
SELF-SCRATCH
I was born with the help of a medical forceps. My mother almost died in childbirth. That's why I remained an only child, which I experienced both the advantages and disadvantages of.
I was registered in the church registry as László Kovács István in July 1952. But in the fifties, using a second first name was not popular, so I remained István Kovács.
My parents and I went on many trips. If the weather was bad, we went to museums and exhibitions on the weekends. My interest in fine arts began at this early age.
I spent memorable summers in Surány, even though there was no electricity for a long time, we listened to the “Szabó family” on a detector radio, and we drew crystal-clear drinking water from a well. I learned to swim, fish, and cycle on the hilly streets by Danube. We went on exploratory trips by bike, and also with girls.
My friends scattered, I only keep in touch with Laci Dluhopolszky, an excellent caricaturist known as Dluho. On his recommendation, I started writing my Surány stories, which were published in the monthly magazine Pócsmegyeri Kisbíró between 2016 and 2019.
Since I was already good at drawing at the age of four, the path to the “Junior High School” was a straightforward one. Being a practical man, my father said the following even before the admission: “Benvenuto Cellini was a goldsmith, yet he also made great sculptures. You can make a living from goldsmithing and be a successful sculptor at the same time.” I accepted his argument.
I graduated in 1970 with a high school diploma. At the same time, I became a skilled goldsmith, but I did not start working in the profession at the Watch and Jewelry Manufacturing Company or the State Coin Mint. I could have soldered series of works as a robot. That was not invented for me.
I was admitted to the sculpture department of the College of Fine Arts, and to be on the safe side, to the drawing-geography department of the Teacher Training College in Szeged. Plan “B” came true, I was admitted to Szeged.
I remember the summer of 1970 well. I traveled to Zebegény to the “Szőnyi Camp”. József Somogyi, a good sculpture teacher corrected my portrait modeling. I proudly used my modeling sticks carved from boxwood. At this, the Master slapped and nipped the clay head with a large kitchen knife, which I thought was almost ready. At the same time, he drew my attention to the pretty model's neck, the curve of the neck, and its proportions. I studied modeling for four years at the Junior High School, and I also attended professional circles. Good sculpture teachers helped my development. I was good with the details, but József Somogyi taught me how to see the whole.
In the fall of 1970, I began my military service as a university pre-enlistment student in Kalocsa. I became a clerk, then barracks renovation began, and my fellow soldier Zoltán Simon (who later became an excellent graphic artist) and I were commissioned to do decoration work. Among other things, there was a wooden relief of Lenin and a cubist-style plaster relief with tanks in the landscape.
I visited Kalocsa ten years ago and drove to the old barracks, which had already been closed. I wanted to take a picture of the three-meter relief I had made in 1971. Private security guards guarded the buildings. They refused my request, even though the relief was still in place. “We can only be allowed in with a ministerial permit,” the gatekeeper said.
At the college in Szeged, I asked for a deferment at the end of my first semester. One of the reasons was petrology. I simply couldn’t memorize the Latin names of the piles of rocks from one class to the next. Our teacher’s expectation that we show up to his classes in a suit and tie really embarrassed me.
The other reason was the attraction of the Orfeo art community. At their theater performance, I met the painter Márta Ilyés, with whom I married in 1972. I became a member of the puppet group, and we built a house with the community in Pilisborosjenő. We were full of illusions, chasing beautiful dreams, which quickly disintegrated after moving in. The grandiose principles no longer worked in practice. We moved back to Márta’s parents with our four-month-old son, and the struggle for a living continued. After delivering the newspaper, I worked as a furniture maker at the National Theater, as a chiseler in a sculpture foundry, and then as a wood sculptor in the following years.
In 1978, I started making fashion jewelry from metal, wood, ceramics, and then plastic. This meant significant financial growth until 1989. “Free trade” ruined the majority of domestic manufacturers, including me.
That's when I switched to burglary prevention, which became known as "burglary protection". But I never protected those interested in burglary. Even though we worked well with four employees, by 1996 I was out of the market because I only knew marketing by hearsay.
What can a bankrupt locksmith do? I started a construction project in Tápiószentmárton, where my father bought us a plot of land with his compensation notes, on which the basement level was ready. After the walls were put up, I did everything I could with my own hands. From the electrical installation to the tiling, from the carpentry of the roof structure to the steel doors. The whitewashing and painting were just foam on the house. Our new home was completed in a year and a half.
My wife fell ill in 1974, a year after giving our son birth. She was diagnosed with the symptoms of MS, which is still incurable. Despite this, she did not give up. She continued her creative work from a wheelchair. Check out Márta Ilyés' virtual gallery: www.ilyesmarta.hu
She participated in several exhibitions with her paintings, and in 2001 she had a solo exhibition at the Műcsarnok (Art Hall). I tried to help her in everything until her death at the end of 2008.
I write about the 37 years spent with Márta Ilyés in my autobiographical novel “The Unfinished Embrace”, which is nearing completion.
During four years of searching for a way out, I got into computer graphics. In 2010, Memento József Attila was made. In 2012, my giant poster “The Statue-Setting Game” was featured at the ARC exhibition.
In 2013, I painted “Tube World”, in which I depict human situations with tubes. My puppeteer past came back to me.
An unexpected life situation made me realize that I can say more about myself and our world through writing than through the tools of fine art. I started writing my novel The Gene of Evil at the end of 2013. I had already finished 400 pages when I felt I needed professional help. I went back to school at the age of 64. Between 2016 and 2019, I attended five semesters of the “Fine-writer” course at Kodolányi University as a student of András Petőcz. I can say that it was a useful pastime. I wrote thirty-two short stories as homework, and in the meantime, my novel was also completed.
I use the name HayKováts as my pen name without a first name. I merged the names of my maternal and paternal grandfathers.
The first and second parts of The Gene of Evil were published in 2019.
The pandemic was not kind to me either. The planned book launches were cancelled. Therefore, instead of the third part, I wrote a novel on a current topic.
This is none other than "The One-Handed Robber".
My first book launch in Buda was held on November 25, 2022 at the Ugocsa Street Library. We talked to András Kemény, the head of Papirusz Book Publishing, about the novel and its history.
A ten-minute video commemorates the event.
I had a book launch in Tápiószentmárton on December 9, 2022, in the small hall of the Cultural Center. Director Kata Majorosi talked to me about my novels.
My second book launch in Pest was held in Eötvös10, in February 2023. My conversation partner was journalist Ágnes Bán.
About my previous novels and events on the page The Gene of Evil (I.-II.)