The Bloody Meadow [Hardcover]

'The Holy Thief, set in Stalin's Russia, was one of last year's most impressive crime fiction debuts. The Bloody Meadow, William Ryan's follow-up, does not disappoint...Ryan has obviously done much research into that sinister period of Russian history and manages to convey its claustrophobic atmosphere brilliantly'
--Marcel Berlins, The Times

`Last year, with William Ryan's The Holy Thief, detective-fiction aficionados welcomed the thrillingly horrific first instalment in a new series set in 1930s Moscow . . . in this second instalment Ryan has produced a film-noir-ish rewrite of the old-fashioned locked-room mystery, complete with creepily gripping, and ultimately gruesome, cops and robbers chase through the great catacombs on which Odessa sits, while Stalin's man-made terror-famine, which scorched through the Ukraine half a decade before the book opens, is only gestured at, in elliptical speech and ultimately in the characters' motivations. Yet what remains constant is Ryan's ability to display a foreign mindset while appearing to be entirely at home in the vernacular. His ear for dialogue is acute . . . But Ryan's primary purpose remains the serious depiction of the hellish hall of mirrors that was Stalinist Russia . . . Ryan's unrolling of the mental gymnastics required to survive this upside-down world where the morning's hero is the evening's victim is both thrillerishly pacey while also allowing his characters to grow in moral stature' --Spectator

`The Holy Thief, set in Stalin's Russia, was one of last year's most impressive crime fiction debuts. The Bloody Meadow, William Ryan's follow-up, does not disappoint. His hero, Captain Alexei Korolev, a detective in Moscow's criminal investigation squad in the 1930s, dissatisfied and morose, manages to cling to his job and his life while all around him are losing theirs. He's ordered to the port of Odessa to look into the apparent suicide of a young woman film production assistant whose importance was that she was also the secret mistress of an influential state commissar. Korolev's inquiries unearth dangerous secrets. Ryan has obviously done much research into that sinister period of Russian history and manages to convey its claustrophobic atmosphere brilliantly' --The Times

'Ryan has produced a film-noir-ish rewrite of the old-fashioned locked-room mystery, complete with creepily gripping, and ultimately gruesome, cops and robbers chase through the great catacombs on which Odessa sits, while Stalin's man-made terror-famine, which scorched through the Ukraine half a decade before the book opens, is only gestured at, in elliptical speech and ultimately in the characters' motivations....Ryan's primary purpose remains the serious depiction of the hellish hall of mirrors that was Stalinist Russia... Ryan's unrolling of the mental gymnastics required to survive this upside-down world where the morning's hero is the evening's victim is both thrillerishly pacey while also allowing his characters to grow in moral stature' --The Spectator

'William Ryan convincingly pitched us into the Kafkaesque labyrinth of 1930s Stalinist Russia with last year's The Holy Thief - his troubled Moscow militia detective risking the gulag as he uncovered crimes at high levels. In The Bloody Meadow Korolev is dispatched to film set in the Ukraine to dig into the supposed suicide of a young, pretty `model citizen' with powerful connections . . . Korolev's struggle to stay sane in a world gone mad is intriguing' --Metro New Crime Books to Try feature

'The resemblance to an Agatha Christie country-house mystery (but with an injection of politics) grows as he quizzes a colourful set of suspects, in a novel that confirms Ryan's talent' --Sunday Times

'A Red hot mystery with ice in its veins...every bit as darkly compelling as its prede --Metro

Captain Alexei Korolev returns . . .