A brilliant crime drama novel detailing the story of one Soviet detective's attempt to uncover the culprit of a string of murders occurring during the early days of Stalin's terror.

A grisly murder. A Russian Detective in Moscow handed a hot potato of a case he knows he shouldn’t take. Especially as it’s 1936, you’re 42, your boss is Stalin, and he’s getting twitchy… But what are you gonna do? A nice new flat, is a nice new flat, no matter where it is, who you have to share it with and who might have just been kicked out of it to make way for you. When you’re in favour, you learn to take what you can get, ask questions later and hope the answers are what your bosses want to hear.

There’s been a murder. A horrible one (you’re going to need some steely nerves, to read about the murders and murderer here), a ritualistic-looking murder in a deconsecrated church. In Moscow, of all places. Where religion isn’t supposed to exist. Or is frowned upon at the best, can be bad for your career as well. Not something you shout about, or cross yourself while others are looking. But Korolev is a patient, careful, diligent and methodical man. A model Soviet citizen, by the looks of it (“The highest conviction rate in the division and you didn’t even beat the convictions out of them”). However, he prays to the God the Soviets say doesn’t exist. Just to be on the safe side, as it were. So, a mutilated woman is the case facing our Alexei Dimitrevich Korolev of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Moscow Militia. A case he knows is going to lead to problems and him into trouble. A case he knows he should run away screaming from. What could possibly go wrong? Oh yeah, the woman turns out to be an American. And the NKVD, the most feared of the most feared services in the new worker’s paradise that is the early Soviet Union, are involved. But don’t want any one to know. Unless they are crossed. But they’re not going to tell you when that is.

The story builds slowly, the investigation takes time to get going. This is both because an investigation like that, at that time, would have taken time to get going, but also because William Ryan is (in case you didn’t know it) getting started on a series of books about the investigative skills of Captain Korolev. So there’s a lot of background work to be put in. About him and about the Russia he was working in. This is done very well indeed. It did remind me of Sam Eastman’s 'Red…’ series I’ve read a couple of. They are perhaps even more bleak than these and his Inspector Pekkala has been a favourite of the Tzar’s before becoming involved under Stalin. Korolev is further down the revolutionary pecking order, isn’t working so closely with Stalin as Pekala, for example, and I don’t remember if William Ryan described his pre-Revolution background. Maybe that’s to come. Both are detectives and both are determined to solve the crime from the point of view that a murder has been committed, someone is responsible and they have been tasked with finding the perpetrator. They want to solve the crime without it spilling over into political recriminations. Though of course, in Soviet Russia of the 1930’s, that is largely out of their hands.

Korolev is totally a product of the Revolution. He supports it, enthusiastically, not in the ways you’re thinking, but perhaps more in its original principles and aims. Though I get the feeling, that William Ryan has intended that Korolev is behind the Revolution for what he, Korolev, thought it was for and would lead to. He hasn’t quite got to grips with what it became under Stalin. He is realistic and he sees signs of course (“The hotel might be owned by the People, but that didn’t mean the People were crazy enough to visit it”), he’s not an idiot and not blind, but seems still to be operating in something of a Revolutionary ‘glow.’ That’s the impression I got from his character anyway. It’s one I look forward to seeing develop in future Korolev stories. Other comparisons, in terms of the level of assimilation into Russian/Moscovian life in the 1930’s under Stalin can and should be made with the masterly work of David Downing. While Downing is of course in Germany before and during (so far for me) the Second World War, that is only a couple of years later than when this book is set, don’t forget. While I don’t think William Ryan is up to David Downing levels just yet, but he shows all the signs of getting there, quickly. I can’t praise the book higher than that.

It really felt a little like the start of a series, where there’s a lot of background and character work to be done and the story, or the danger/excitement/tension levels suffer a little as a result. Having said that, the scenes in the Lubyanka prison and some of the various confrontations were extremely tense and very well done. If anything, it showed that in Stalin’s Russia, at that time anyway, the criminals were a lot more dependable, predictable and honest in a way, than those working for a better future for the proletariat.

A page turner - comfort read to return to after a small gap in reading

***1/2
Pretty good. The setting alone is enough for me to continue this series.

This is a great debut mystery novel. Though the mystery aspect did get a little bit predictable at times, the way that the characters figured everything out did not. Even if I thought I knew what Korolev and Seminov were going to find through a certain line of questioning or investigation, I was never bored reading about it.

The characterization really made this book for me. Just about everyone we see more than once is multi-layered. In a book that is literally about cops and robbers, that can get pretty fascinating. I liked spending a lot of time in Korolov's head, as the lead detective on a case where he sympathizes with the people he is potentially trying to catch. And while the noble criminal and crooked cop tropes did become a bit played out at times, I liked watching Korolev judge everyone individually rather than based on their job or rank. The politics of very newly Communist Moscow were also interesting. It added a whole new layer to the crime mystery/drama of the novel.

All in all, an interesting and exciting read!


Book source: Advanced reader's copy through the Goodreads First Reads Program.

This superb thriller, by an Irish author, is set in Moscow in 1936, a hungry, fearful place. The Revolution is in full swing. Stalin reigns supreme. The secret police stalk the streets and offices and homes and informers whisper in their ears and every now and then the statue of a Russian hero is taken down and his picture removed and he is never heard from again. The populace walk on eggshells, but the real Terror is yet to come. The churches are deconsecrated and religion is a crime, but Russia’s long, devout history does not die easily.

After the discovery of the horribly mutilated body of a women displayed on the altar of a church,Captain Alexei Dimitrevich Korolev of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Moscow Militia, investigates. The discovery that the body is that of an American citizen is a cause for grave concern and draws unwelcome attention from his superiors and from the NKVD. More bodies are discovered, and Korolev follows a trail that takes him to the lowest depths of the Moscow underworld and the highest reaches of his own organisation.

Gripping and atmospheric, this debut thriller threatens to charge off into serial-killer-meets-DaVinci Code territory, with its horrible murders and historical artifacts, but in fact Ryan keeps the story firmly grounded, so much so that one of the most memorable sections of the book is a trip to a Spartak Moscow soccer match, depicting the crush and excitement and the hurly-burly with an impressive eye for detail. Korolev is an engaging character, strong, decent, secretly religious, determinedly optimistic about Russia’s communist future.

This is the first volume of a series that promises to be one of the most interesting forays into historical crime fiction in recent years.