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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Ace historian Donald James, who wrote the script for the excellent PBS television series Russia's War and whose book The Fall of the Russian Empire is a fine guide to recent past events, projects his expertise into the near future to create a chaotic, completely believable landscape of terror and frustration in this memorable thriller. It's 2015, and Russia-- racked by civil wars since the fall of the Yeltsin Government and its short-lived liberal successors--is under the strong grip of leader Leonid Koba. A melancholy, alcoholic (are there any other kind?), provincial policeman named Vadim is shipped from Murmansk to a bombed-out district of Moscow, ostensibly to investigate the brutal murders of women credited to a demonlike killer called the Monstrum. But what the people in power really want from the increasingly desperate Vadim is something completely different-- his resemblance to Koba and his connection to the woman who led the defeated rebels. --Naomi Gesinger
Review
The year is 2015. It is the aftermath of a bloody civil war that ravaged the entire nation. The place is Red Presnya, a run-down suburb of Moscow, one of the areas worst affected by the fighting. Vadim, a police officer from Murmansk, is selected to act as a double for Deputy Prime Minister Leonid Koba. A senior officer of the Cheka posts him to Moscow, as a disciplinary incident threatens his career. With no homicide experience, he is appointed Homicide Inspector of 13 Precinct Red Presnya. His superiors demand the immediate apprehension of a serial killer, the Monstrum, who may be the devil himself born out of war, a surgeon turned psychotic murderer, who dissects his female prey and removes selected organs. One of the leaders of the Anarchists, who eventually lost the war, was Vadim's former wife. His seniors want to know her whereabouts, but he is too fond of her to allow her to be used as a symbol of the Anarchists' defeat. A very well-written novel with classic Russian characters full of contemporary Russian idiosyncrasies. (Kirkus UK)
An effectively moody murder mystery - and more - set in 21st-century Russia, from the versatile James (The House of Janus, 1990, etc.). It's 2015, and nationalist forces have just bested insurgent anarchists in a three-year struggle for control of a corrupt, enervated Russia. Shortly after the guns fall silent, out-of-favor police inspector Constantine Vadim is dispatched from remote Murmansk to battle-scarred Moscow. Although without experience in homicide, he's detailed to investigate a succession of bloody murders in which a serial killer dubbed "monstrum" kills and mutilates young women. At the behest of the Cheka (KGB redux), the broody detective (still melancholic five years after his divorce from Julia Petrovna, a charismatic commander of rebel troops during the uprising) also works as a double for Russia's authoritarian vice president, Leonid Koba. While Costya pursues his inquiries amidst the turmoil of an anything-goes capital city and a ramshackle government, he's contacted by Julia, on the run from the belligerency's vengeful victors. Eventually, the dogged detective, with the help of district coroner Dr. Natalya Karlova, is able to establish a link between the murders and an illicit traffic in transplantable body organs. He also stumbles on an even greater crime, a cynical plot to rehabilitate Julia (whose lust for power transcends mere ideology) as Minister of Reconciliation. Stripped of all illusions, a desperate Costya takes matters into his own hands in hopes of subjecting the guilty to appropriate punishments and (paradoxically, perhaps) putting his beloved homeland back on the road to a government of laws, not men. At the close, he's back in Murmansk, making a new life for himself, salt-of-the-earth Natalya, and their unborn child. A bleak but engrossing tale whose impact owes much to the author's skill at conveying the horrific details of a future-shock domain that's neither East nor West but sui generis. (Kirkus Reviews)
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Ace historian Donald James, who wrote the script for the excellent PBS television series Russia's War and whose book The Fall of the Russian Empire is a fine guide to recent past events, projects his expertise into the near future to create a chaotic, completely believable landscape of terror and frustration in this memorable thriller. It's 2015, and Russia-- racked by civil wars since the fall of the Yeltsin Government and its short-lived liberal successors--is under the strong grip of leader Leonid Koba. A melancholy, alcoholic (are there any other kind?), provincial policeman named Vadim is shipped from Murmansk to a bombed-out district of Moscow, ostensibly to investigate the brutal murders of women credited to a demonlike killer called the Monstrum. But what the people in power really want from the increasingly desperate Vadim is something completely different-- his resemblance to Koba and his connection to the woman who led the defeated rebels. --Naomi Gesinger
Review
The year is 2015. It is the aftermath of a bloody civil war that ravaged the entire nation. The place is Red Presnya, a run-down suburb of Moscow, one of the areas worst affected by the fighting. Vadim, a police officer from Murmansk, is selected to act as a double for Deputy Prime Minister Leonid Koba. A senior officer of the Cheka posts him to Moscow, as a disciplinary incident threatens his career. With no homicide experience, he is appointed Homicide Inspector of 13 Precinct Red Presnya. His superiors demand the immediate apprehension of a serial killer, the Monstrum, who may be the devil himself born out of war, a surgeon turned psychotic murderer, who dissects his female prey and removes selected organs. One of the leaders of the Anarchists, who eventually lost the war, was Vadim's former wife. His seniors want to know her whereabouts, but he is too fond of her to allow her to be used as a symbol of the Anarchists' defeat. A very well-written novel with classic Russian characters full of contemporary Russian idiosyncrasies. (Kirkus UK)
An effectively moody murder mystery - and more - set in 21st-century Russia, from the versatile James (The House of Janus, 1990, etc.). It's 2015, and nationalist forces have just bested insurgent anarchists in a three-year struggle for control of a corrupt, enervated Russia. Shortly after the guns fall silent, out-of-favor police inspector Constantine Vadim is dispatched from remote Murmansk to battle-scarred Moscow. Although without experience in homicide, he's detailed to investigate a succession of bloody murders in which a serial killer dubbed "monstrum" kills and mutilates young women. At the behest of the Cheka (KGB redux), the broody detective (still melancholic five years after his divorce from Julia Petrovna, a charismatic commander of rebel troops during the uprising) also works as a double for Russia's authoritarian vice president, Leonid Koba. While Costya pursues his inquiries amidst the turmoil of an anything-goes capital city and a ramshackle government, he's contacted by Julia, on the run from the belligerency's vengeful victors. Eventually, the dogged detective, with the help of district coroner Dr. Natalya Karlova, is able to establish a link between the murders and an illicit traffic in transplantable body organs. He also stumbles on an even greater crime, a cynical plot to rehabilitate Julia (whose lust for power transcends mere ideology) as Minister of Reconciliation. Stripped of all illusions, a desperate Costya takes matters into his own hands in hopes of subjecting the guilty to appropriate punishments and (paradoxically, perhaps) putting his beloved homeland back on the road to a government of laws, not men. At the close, he's back in Murmansk, making a new life for himself, salt-of-the-earth Natalya, and their unborn child. A bleak but engrossing tale whose impact owes much to the author's skill at conveying the horrific details of a future-shock domain that's neither East nor West but sui generis. (Kirkus Reviews)
See all Product Description