★Bestselling Slovenian Crime Fiction Author Avgust Demšar with over 25,000 copies sold.
★The most successfull TV series in Slovenian TV production with over 1 million viewers.
★Avgust Demšar was awarded with the 2025 Glazer Award for special achievements in literature.

Martin Vrenko, a retired police inspector, is spending time at a spa, where he can’t help but notice the hidden tensions and unspoken pathologies among the guests. His wife, Mojca, soon joins him—only to stumble upon a corpse in the sauna. Vrenko tries to take control of the investigation, but his efforts are dismissed. The death is ruled natural— after all, heart patients shouldn’t be using the sauna. Yet Vrenko is convinced it’s murder.

He turns to his former colleagues for help. For a while, it seems that something is amiss, but then the evidence suggests otherwise. Even Vrenko begins to doubt himself—has his imagination run wild? Then, an employee disappears. Vrenko’s suspicions flare up again—but there’s nothing concrete to prove foul play. In the end, Vrenko leaves the spa, the deceased is cremated and buried, and the case is officially closed. Months later, however, Vrenko lays out his own theory to his former colleagues. He insists that a murder was committed, even claiming to know the killer and their motive—but he has no proof. The case is over, but for Vrenko, the truth is what matters most. Yet Inspector Miloš follows up on Vrenko’s claims and finds that they cannot be true. Did Vrenko imagine the whole thing? In this crime novel, the author calls into question the credibility of Vrenko’s judgement—challenging the reader to wrestle with the same uncertainty. Everything that must be explained in a crime novel is explained—but nothing is truly resolved. Or does it just seem that way?

In this crime novel, the author questions the credibility of Frenko's judgment, challenging readers to confront the same uncertainty. Everything in a crime novel that should be explained is explained, but nothing is truly resolved. Or is it just an illusion?

Avgust Demšar is a Maribor-based writer who writes exclusively detective stories. In collaboration with the publishing house, he created one of the first Slovenian cyclical detective opuses in 2007-2012, six novels with the common title Primeri inšpektorja Vrenko. With the seventh novel, Miloš (2013), he continued the series of classic detective stories of the type kdo je torilec (Who is the Murderer?), while at the same time introducing new literary characters instead of the established ones, Inspector Miloš, detective Nika Lavrič, and detective Drago Jazbec. He combined both crime groups in his next novel, Pohorska transverzala (2016), and a similar situation is also present in his latest novel, a crime novel titled Otok (expected to be published in 2018).

Excerpts from Demšar's novel Tanek led (2009) were published in the magazine Lud Literatura, his work is presented on the national radio in the shows "Literary portrait", "Views on contemporary art" and "Saturday reading", he participated in the literary evening Pota žernske literatura at the Konzorcij bookstore, at the Sanje festival, etc.

Avgust Demšar was nominated for the Kresnik Award, the Delo Award for the best novel of the past year, for his literary debut, a detective novel titled Olje na balkonu (in 2008), for his second novel, a detective novel titled Retrospektiva (in 2009), for his fourth titled Evropa (in 2010) and for his fifth titled Hotel Abbazia (2011). The real name of the author, who is an assistant professor of art didactics at the Department of Preschool Education, Faculty of Education, University of Maribor, is Tomaž Zupančič.

In April 2017, Avgust Demšar participated in a public competition for the development of a TV series, which was announced by RTV Slovenia and was selected among 28 submitted proposals. In January 2018, RTV Slovenia purchased six scripts from Demšar, developed based on his novels Olje na balkonu, Retrospektiva and Tanek led. Based on these, they plan to shoot six 50-minute episodes of a crime TV series with the working title Primeri inšpektorja Vrenko.

The main permanent characters in Demšar's detective stories are senior criminal inspector Martin Vrenko, senior criminal investigator Ivana Premk and young criminal investigator Marko Breznik. They are also accompanied by homophobic police officer Aleksander Rep, Roma police officer Oskar Brajdič, prosecutor Luka Levstek and others. In the seventh novel, entitled Miloš, Demšar introduces new characters. The main investigator is the criminal inspector Miloš (whether it is a first name or a last name is unknown) and he is accompanied by senior criminal investigator Nika Lavrič and criminal investigator Drago Jazbec. Although the characters are new, the setting remains the same as in the previous novels, and at the same time, there are some hints in the novel that the heroes of Demšar's previous novels also exist in Miloš's literary world. In Demšar's eighth novel, entitled Pohorska transversala, subtitled Political Crime, both teams of literary detectives come together. This creates a conglomerate of relationships between them and, as an interesting fact – and a rarity – in one detective novel, it confronts the two main, titular literary inspectors.

Demšar's crime stories are set in the real environment of the city of Maribor and the real present time. Avgust Demšar's detective work is designed as a series in which the fates of the regular characters develop, while the detective stories are independent, completed wholes in each book.

Detective cases by Avgust Demšar are designed as classic detective puzzles ("Whodunit"). The stories are based on detection, hidden keys and clues, which are constantly available to the reader, who competes with the main characters and tries to solve the case together with them or even before them.

Although Demšar relies heavily on the classic genre rules of writing a detective novel, he also weaves current socially critical themes into his stories. He is critical of social differences, intolerance, homophobia and xenophobia.