Review of Red Square by Edward Topol and Fridrikh Neznansky (1983, Corgi)

A special investigator for the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, Shamrayev is taking a break in Sochi on the Black Sea when he is urgently recalled to Moscow investigate the suspicious death of Semen Tsvigun, the Deputy Director of the KGB and Brezhnev’s brother-in-law. The KGB have quickly commissioned an autopsy, declared the death a suicide, and arranged for Tsvigun’s burial. Shamrayev soon finds his avenues of inquiry being actively blocked by very senior figures across security and police agencies, with not so subtle threats being delivered to drop the case. A massive round up of senior post holders across multiple agencies involved in the black market is taking place, and Tsvigun’s death is being used to move against Brezhnez’s family, who seem to be at the heart of the lucrative trading, and to conduct a political coup. Shamrayev is not prepared to let murder slide and he has a letter from Brezhnev that provides him with the power to demand whatever is required to solve Tsvigun’s death and protect the head of state from scandal.

Topol and Neznansky’s tale spins the actual reported suicide of Tsvigun by imagining it as murder, populating the story with numerous real-world characters and scandal relating to ‘Brezhnev’s mafia’, which led a high life in Moscow on the back of black market profiteering. Novelist and screenwriter, Topol provides the engaging narrative, while authenticity in the police procedural and internal politics between state agencies is added through Neznansky’s insider knowledge gleaned as an experienced Soviet prosecutor before emigrating to the United States. The result is a political thriller meets police procedural in which the stark realities of Soviet life in the Brezhnev era is revealed: from the heavy state hand, paranoia, discipline and punishment, everyday resistance, black market, political corruption, and institutional rivalries. Added into the mix is anti-Semitism and rampant misogyny. The authors keep the story moving at a brisk pace with plenty of intrigue, tension, and attention to detail as Shamrayev tries to uncover who killed Tsgivun, what game is really being played out, and to actively intervene. It leads to a nice denouement and a couple of good twists, keeping the ‘what really did happen’ framing active to the final line.

Review of Dead Meat by Philip Kerr (1993, Vintage)

After the collapse of the Soviet empire various mafia factions have moved to control economic activities. Business owners kowtow and government officials and the police are easily bought. A Moscow investigator travels to St Petersburg to discover if a special investigations police unit is corrupt. The unit is headed up by Grushko, a tough, street smart and wily cop who appears to be straight. The investigator is quickly enrolled into two cases, the firebombing of a local restaurant and the murders of a journal who specialist in uncovering scandals and a Georgian mafia member. The mafia seem at the heart of both and rival factions appear primed for a turf war. As Grushko and his team start to investigate it’s clear that whatever scandal the journalist was working on seems key, though nobody connected to the case seems to know what it was.

Dead Meat is a police procedural set in St Petersburg in 1993. The shortages of the Soviet era persist, but now the mafia control key goods not the state and prices are extortionate. Grushko heads up a special unit that tackles mafia crime, but such is the level of corruption in the police that he and his team is not above suspicion. A special investigator from Moscow is sent to provide an assessment under the guise of learning by being embedded into the team. He quickly finds himself actively working on mafia related cases, including the murder of a high profile journalist. Told in a hardboiled style and using plenty of local slang, Dead Meat charts Grushko’s investigation and the how his team are assessed in turn. The tale is relatively straightforward, but plot is engaging and lively. In particular, Kerr does a nice job of evoking the city and Russia in the aftermath of the Soviet Union, and the politics and workings of the police, and there’s an interesting set of characters.

Review of Legion of the Damned by Sven Hassel (1953, Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

I first read the Legion of the Damned as a teenager, along with a number of others in the series. I remember it quite differently to the present reading, perhaps coloured by the other books. Legion was the first book and supposedly the most auto-biographical. Indeed, the main character is the author and it follows his experiences of the Second World War serving in the German army, predominately on the Russian front. Far from glorifying war, or trying to recast the German crusade in a positive light, Hassel details the brutality of war for those on the frontline, made bearable by the comradery of fellow soldiers, most of whom are destined to die, letters from home, and snatched love affairs. Indeed, it is an anti-war book, critiquing those in power and their lackeys, and the savagery of the regime and battle.

It starts with Hassel being convicted of desertion, his time in prison and labour camps before being transferred to a penal battalion deemed expendable. It then traces his traversal of Europe and various wartime activities until the near the end of the war. There are brief interludes of levity and humanity, but generally it is grim reading. There are also hints at involvement in the anti-Nazi movement, though these are sketched over. It’s not clear how much is fiction (which is how the book is sold), and how much is autobiographical; though it is clear that it is based on Hassel’s experiences. The telling is quite episodic with a weak narrative structure, some of the scenes are brief, and it does end quite abruptly, though it is trying to cover a number of years in a relatively brief book. Nonetheless, the tale does debunk the myth of the glory of war, giving a strong sense of the horror of a brutal regime and total war, and the weariness and emptiness of endless frontline service.

Review of The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott (2019, Knopf)

Post World War Two and Boris Pasternak is writing Doctor Zhivago. A famous poet and writer he has so far been spared Stalin’s purges, but his new novel is likely to get him branded as anti-Soviet and open him up to the associated persecution. Instead, his lover and muse, Olga Ivinskaya is sent to the gulags to suppress his ambitions to publish the book. In the US, the OSS has been disbanded to be replaced by the CIA, intent on spying on and destabilising the Soviets. Irina Drozdov, the daughter of a Russian émigré, lands a job in the CIA typing pool and is also pulled into training for field ops. Ex-OSS swallow Sally Forrester is re-hired as a receptionist and to help train Irina. Against the wishes of the recently released Olga, Pasternak gives permission to an Italian publisher to smuggle his novel outside of Russia and to translate and distribute it worldwide. Olga is fearful he has signed his own and her death warrant. The CIA see the novel as a way to sow unrest in the Soviet Union by smuggling multiple copies back behind the iron curtain. Irina’s role is help distribute the book to Soviets visiting Europe. While Doctor Zhivago is a hit, touching the lives of millions of readers, becoming a much loved movie, and helping Pasternak win the Nobel Prize, it has consequences for those associated with the writer and Irina and Sally.

The Secrets We Kept is the story of the writing and publication of Doctor Zhivago. Prescott tells the tale from multiple perspectives, shuttling back-and-forth between the USSR and its author Boris Pasternak and his mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya, and the members of the typing pool in the Soviet section of the CIA, and in particular an unnamed narrator, Irina Drozdov, a typist recruited to also become a field agent, and Sally Forrester, a glamourous ex-OSS swallow hired to help train Irina. The result is a multi-layered story told in multiple voices that tells the story behind the novel in a way that mimics the tale: two doomed love affairs, one in the East, one in the West, caught up in an on-going internal ideological battle and a wider war. The opening couple of chapters are fabulous: lively, engaging prose and strong hooks. After that the story holds attention, but the shuttling back and forth and multiple voices fragments the story a little and the pace slows, and the espionage angle firmly takes a back seat. The threads are never really pulled tightly back together again, and while the characterisation remains compelling, the tale kind of fizzled at the end, especially with respect to Irina and Sally. As a sidebar, the back cover blurb was clearly written by someone who did not read the book. Two secretaries are not pulled out of the typing pool to smuggle the book out of the USSR – one of them is placed into the pool to train the other, and one has the job of helping to smuggle it back in by distributing it to Soviets visiting the West. Overall, a thoughtful, interesting tale that at times sparkles but is a little uneven and lacked intrigue and tension.

Review of Moskva by Jack Grimwood (2016, Penguin)

December 1985, the body of a teenage boy is found in Red Square clutching a wax angel. A week later, Alex Marston, the precocious teenage daughter of the British Ambassador disappears. Major Tom Fox, newly arrived in the embassy after the death of his daughter and a work-related incident, agrees to try and locate her. For Fox the mission is more than simply offering to help, it is a chance to redeem the death of his daughter. It’s soon clear that Alex was taken and is being held against her will, but there is a larger game going on between a senior group of Russian officials that has its roots in the last days of the Second World War. After working undercover in Northern Ireland, Fox is used to moving through the shadows, but navigating the intricacies of Russia’s politics and personal rivalries is a tricky business, especially with a young girl’s life on the line.

Moskva is the first in the Tom Fox series, following the exploits of a British military intelligence officer at the tail end of the cold war. Fox is a damaged soul, a man who abandoned life as a priest for a wife and family and undercover in Northern Ireland; a man who has recently lost his daughter and is about to be divorced. He’s been shipped to Moscow to keep him out of the way of a select committees questions, but he has a habit of finding trouble. In this case it comes in the form of the kidnapping of the British Ambassador’s daughter. Fox starts his own investigation, which is facilitated by senior Soviet figures, both sides wanting to keep the incident out of the media and political spotlight. Unwittingly he has also stumbled into a wider conspiracy. What unfolds is a cold war thriller set in the early days of Perestroika. Grimwood keeps the pace and tension high as Fox careens from one situation to another, and there is plenty of intrigue and twists and turns. The result is a gripping page-turner, especially towards the end. I was swept along with it, rushing over a number of plot devices used to keep the story on track. I lost the thread a little at the denouement as while most of the elements of the unravelling conspiracy made sense, there were a couple of aspects that seemed a little obtuse. Nonetheless, it was a captivating read and I’ll be reading the next in the series.

Review of Red Plenty by Francis Spufford (2007, Faber and Faber)

After Stalin dies Nikita Khrushchev comes to power. He makes a rash challenge that by 1980 the Soviet Union will have overtaken the United States as the world’s economic power house: a socialist, planned economy he predicts will grow faster and lift all boats, unlike the vagaries and divisions of capitalism. What would make this happen was a shunning of profit as the organising logic and an embracing of cybernetics. For a brief time it appeared as if the Soviets could catch up to the US with year-after-year exceptional growth and scientific and technological breakthroughs with respect to space and the military. But then the wheels started to come off and growth slowed.

Francis Spufford tells this story through a blend of history and fiction. It’s an interesting approach that works remarkably well. It’s aided by some superb prose and inventive, captivating storytelling. Moreover, Spufford does an excellent job of explaining complex science and economics through a fiction narrative (there’s definitely a lot that non-fiction writers could learn from this). The tale is told through a series of short stories, each focusing on a particular situation and character – a scientist/economist, a politician, a party-affiliated worker, a fixer, etc. – and their role in society and economy. The stories are spread over a decade from the late 1950s to late 1960s and they illustrate why the Soviet planned economy and the cybernetic approach failed to deliver on its promise (basically people and politics corrupt any system, and close modelling and planning of literally millions of moving components and variables is analytically impossible). The first two thirds is exceptionally good. The latter third the tale runs out of steam a little and the wrap-up is a little thin, meaning the tale as a whole kind of peters out. Nonetheless, Red Plenty is a fascinating read told through some scintillating storytelling.

Review of Defectors by Joseph Kanon (Atria, 2017)

Simon Weeks used to work for the State Department, but after the defection of his brother, Frank, to the Soviets in 1949 he’s been working in publishing. It’s now 1961 and Frank wants Simon’s company to publish his memoirs of his time as a spy. As the first account by a defector, one approved KGB, it would should be a welcome financial boost. The CIA are less keen for the Weeks brothers to be profiting from Frank’s treachery. Simon travels to Moscow to work on editing the manuscript with his brother, who quickly springs a surprise on him – he wants to counter-defect back to the US, taking his wife with him. Simon unwittingly finds himself playing a dangerous game in a country he doesn’t know, with two intelligence agencies and brother he doesn’t trust. But once he’s stepped over the line, the only thing to do is play the game to its conclusion.

Joseph Kanon’s stand-alone novel, The Defectors, is set in Russia in 1961 at the height of the Cold War and focuses on the relationship between two brothers – Frank, a Soviet spy who has defected to Moscow and still works for The Service (KGB), and Simon, a former State Department analyst turned publisher. Simon’s company is going to publish Frank’s memoirs, and Simon has travelled on a special visa to discuss and edit the manuscript. That means meeting for the first time in twelve years and raking over old ground, all under the watchful eye of Boris, a colonel in the KGB, plus other Service agents, and a handful of other defectors who form a loose social circle. The key hook of the story is the proposal by his brother to counter-defect, drawing the two brothers into a dangerous exit game. The strength of the story is that Kanon plays the tale in an under-stated way, focusing on the relationships between characters, the monotony and paranoia of life in the Soviet Union, the disconnected lives of defectors, and the stress of playing a duplicitous game, rather than it being an adrenaline-rushed thriller. This also works against the story at times, with the pace slowing to a crawl. There are also some jarring moments that felt like awkward plot devices and the denouement felt somewhat rushed and a little flat despite the couple of twists. Overall, an interesting spy tale that seemed to be missing a bit of intrigue and tension.

Review of A Cold Red Sunrise by Stuart Kaminsky (1988, Ballantine)

In a remote village in Siberia the young daughter of a soon to be political-exile has died. The commissar sent to investigate her death is murdered by an icicle thrust through his eye. Inspector Porfiry Rostnikpov is sent from Moscow to investigate the commissar’s murder, but is instructed not to investigate the death of the young girl, even if the two are related. Rostnikpov’s career is on a downward spiral; he manages to expose political and police corruption and gain justice but pays in being reassigned and sidelined. And it seems that some hope that the trip to Siberia will finish him off for good, either falling foul of the two officers sent to spy on his investigation or going the same way as the commissar. In freezing conditions, Rostnikpov quizzes the inhabitants and tries to identify a murderer while also outwitting his companions.

A Cold Red Sunrise is the fifth book of the Inspector Rostnikpov series set in Russia. This outing, published in 1988, shows slight hints of the Glasnost era, though the Soviet regime is very much in place. Rostnikpov is an interesting character – a stoic, cunning man with an injured leg, who is obsessed with weight-lifting and solving crimes, and manages to maintain high principles yet survive the political machinations of the Soviet policing and intelligence services. In this tale, Rostnikpov is sent to Siberia to investigate the death of a commissar who had been investigating the suspicious death of the daughter of a soon-to-be political exile. Nobody in the small village seems happy with his presence and his prime tactic is to subtly unsettle the locals to try and provoke a reaction. It’s a dangerous move given what happened to the commissar. Like Rostnikpov and Siberia, the storytelling is spartan, being all show and no tell. There’s a strong sense of place and contextualisation as to the politics of living and working in the Soviet regime. At one level the story seems relatively straightforward and uncomplicated, but as it nears its conclusion Kaminsky reveals some nice twists that make perfect sense but are nonetheless surprising. Overall, an engaging and entertaining police procedural.

Review of The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith (2009, Pocket Books)

Moscow, 1956. Leo Demidov, former MGB officer, now heads up a homicide division. The new Soviet leader, Khrushchev, has denounced the hard-line of Stalin in a secret speech that has been widely circulated and has promised reform.  Millions have been complicit in carrying out Stalin’s purges and millions were executed and sent to gulags.  Leo has personally arrested hundreds of people, many of them guilty of little more than trying to survive a brutal regime.  Khrushchev’s speech threatens to destabilise the Soviet system and someone seems intent on exacting revenge against those in power.  Leo, his wife Raisa, and their two adopted daughters are in the firing line. Leo wishes to atone for his part in wrecking lives, but not at the expense of his family. To save them he must undertake a hazardous mission, first to the gulags of Siberia, then to revolutionary Hungary.

The Secret Speech is the second book in the Leo Demidov trilogy.  After his exploits in Child 44, Demidov is now running a homicide division.  He can’t break free of his MGB days, however.  One of those he arrested and sent to the gulags is using the ‘Khrushchev thaw’, in which the new leader seeks reform and to the hard-line actions of the State, and their early release to target those responsible for their incarceration.  Leo and his new family is top of the list for reprisals.  Smith uses this revenge premise to construct a wider political thriller in which Leo, in order to save his family, becomes an unwilling participant in a larger plot.  There’s certainly a lot going on in the tale, including a potted history of Khrushchev’s failed reforms, the savagery of the gulags, the parallel criminal underworld in the Soviet Union, and the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian rising, with Leo trying to navigate each to stay alive and rescue his kidnapped daughter.  While there’s plenty of action and tension, the story becomes ever-more unbelievable as the tale progresses. Both the political thread and Leo’s quest become ragged, staged and driven by plot devices.  Leo not only survives the first hundred pages or so, but somehow has ninety-nine lives despite the numerous life-threatening scrapes he finds himself in.  The result is a Hollywood blockbuster that hides a tenuous plot with violence, melodrama, political intrigue, and a series of mini-cliffhangers. 

Review of Where the Iron Crosses Grow: The Crimea 1941–44 by Robert Forczyk (Osprey Pub, 2014)

The Crimea has long been fought over.  Robert Forczyk provides a brief summary of  number of conflicts as context for his main focus: the period between Russian Revolution and the Second World War, and in particular WWII itself.  While the contextual material covering the pre-WWII is a little sketchy, the war and the various actions and battles between 1941 and 1944 are covered in depth.  The Germans and Romanians entered the Crimea in force in September 1941, occupying most of the territory with the exception of Sevastopol.  Kerch was briefly taken back by the Russians in December for five months.  The siege of Sevastopol lasted 250 days before it finally fell. The Russians held a toe-hold at Kerch in late 1943 and invaded in force in April 1944, occupying the whole territory by early May, with the Germans conducting a Dunkirk-style evacuation of troops from Sevastopol.  The scale of the battles meant thousands of troops and civilians on both sides were killed or captured during the fighting or subsequent ethnic cleansing.  Further, during the German occupation, many Crimean Tatars sided with the Axis, paying a heavy-price after war being sent to labour camps or being murdered en masse.

Forczyk provides a blow-by-blow account of the war in the Crimea in what often reads as a list-like battle diary.  There is no shortage of technical terms, but very little personal testimony or a sense of key personalities beyond identifying them.  Moreover, while there is an extensive detailing of the places where battles occur, there is not a single map, let alone detailed battle maps.  Further, the narrative seems a little unequal, with the balance of attention focused on the Germans.  This is also reflected in the title – ‘Where the Iron Crosses Grow’ – despite the fact that the Russians were often just as brave and certainly lost more personnel in the conflict.  The result is an account that is somewhat dry and distant.  The last handful of pages concerning present day conflict in the Crimea is thin and strays into political reporting.  Overall, a quite technical, dry account that details all of the main events.

Review of The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko (2006, Hyperion; 1998 Russian)

For a thousand years or more, a select group of supernatural humans, so-called ‘Others’, have lived among ordinary mortals, serving either the Dark or the Light.  While the Light feel duty bound to serve a common good and seek to produce a utopia, the Dark live to serve themselves.  Since calling a truce both sides honour a treaty, seeking to make sure each observes its remit while also trying to get the upperhand.  Anton is a mid-level member of the Night Watch who spend their time policing members of the Dark in Moscow.  Patrolling the metro one evening and tracking a young Other who has yet to choose the Light or Dark, Anton spots a young woman carrying a curse.  Both the child and woman, along with Anton, turn out to be highly significant pawns in a larger game being played by the respective bosses of the Light and Dark, and all three are in grave danger.  While Anton is not blessed with great magical powers he has enough guile to try and plot a path out of their predicament; it’s not clear though whether a willingness to try will be enough to save them and the city from catastrophe.

The Night Watch is an urban fantasy set in modern day Moscow.  It follows the adventures of Anton, a young member of the Night Watch who police the actions of the Dark, a collective of supernatural people who use their powers to further their own ends.  Members of the Light and Dark walk amongst ordinary people but can practice magic, take on other forms, and can slip into the Twilight, a kind of magical overlay that enables other kinds of interactions with time and space.  Following a young boy who is being called to a pair of vampires, Anton spots a young woman who is cursed.  The intersection of the three pull them into a strange interlinked nexus.  Both the boy and woman are ‘Others’ that have not yet chosen the Light or Dark and both sides want them to join their ranks.  It soon becomes clear, however, that a wider game is being played. It’s a testimony to the storytelling that Lukyanenko creates a full realised fantasy world that seems entirely natural to the reader from the first page.  Anton is an engaging character and is surrounded by other colourful members of the Night and Day Watch.  The plot is nicely constructed with good interplay between the characters and a shifting pattern of fortunes. Lukyanenko structures the tale into three interlinked parts, each of which is constructed as if it is a separate episode in a longer story arc.  The result is an entertaining and compelling tale of an unfolding battle between good and evil, the Light and the Dark.

Review of City of Thieves by David Benioff (Viking, 2008)

Lev Beniov is the son of a poet who has disappeared in Stalin’s purges. Aged seventeen he chose to stay in the sieged city of Leningrad when his mother and sister were evacuated and spends his nights as a fire warden on the roof of his apartment block.  When a dead German parachutist lands nearby he and his starving friends loot the body.  Lev, however, is caught by the NKVD and taken to the infamous Crosses prison.  He is soon joined in his cell by Kolya, who has been arrested for desertion.  The penalty for looting and desertion is death. However, the following morning they are taken to see a colonel who is determined that his daughter will have a cake at her wedding reception at the end of the week.  His wife needs a dozen eggs and Lev and Kolya’s task is to find and bring them back or be executed.  It seems like an impossible task in a city cut off from supplies and fresh food is a distant memory. Given no option, the two strangers embark on their quest, scouring the city and heading out behind enemy lines.

City of Thieves is a well crafted coming-of-age story set during the Siege of Leningrad.  It’s told from the perspective of the author recounting how his grandparents met before emigrating to America.  The tale has a number of strengths, including an engaging voice and prose, well-paced narrative, a well-developed sense of place, time and context, and a great hook and engaging story line.  What makes the book shine, however, is the characterisation and the emerging relationship between two friends.  Lev is a shy, intelligent but somewhat naïve seventeen year old working as a fire warden.  Kolya is only a couple of years older but is gregarious and much more worldly-wise.  The pair are thrown together when Lev is caught looting the body of a dead German parachutist and Kolya is arrested for desertion, having slipped back into the city for some female company. Facing summary execution, they are given the option of a reprieve if they can locate a dozen eggs for the wedding cake of a NKVD colonel’s daughter.  While Lev is uncertain how to proceed, Kolya seems to relish the challenge, confident he can use his charm, wit and wiles to track down the eggs.  As their quest unfolds Kolya takes Lev under his wing and an uneasy friendship starts to develop, deepening as they encounter a number of challenges.  Having quickly exhausted options in the city, they move through Soviet lines into the countryside beyond, tangling with partisans and Germans.  One partisan in particular catches Lev’s eye, Vika, a deadly sniper.  She seemingly has little interest in him or Kolya, though gradually she becomes the third member of the quest.  Benioff nicely blends the action of the adventure with the dynamics of the emerging friendship and observations about Soviet society and the war.  And while the tale could have been dark and depressing, Benioff nicely balances pathos with dark humour and moments of warmth.  Where the story does slip a little is with respect to the emotional register, particularly towards the end, with an absence of grief or anger or a tugging on heart strings.  Nonetheless, City of Thieves is an engaging and entertaining tale of hardship, friendship and adventure.

Review of Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith (1989, Random House)

After fleeing Moscow former state investigator Arkady Renko has worked his way east, hiding in the shadows, always moving on before his former colleagues track him down.  It is now the time of Perestroika and Renko is working the slime line of a large factory ship, gutting fish before they are frozen.  In the spirit of cooperation the boat is working with American trawlers, storing their catches.  When one of the trawlers deposits the body of a female crew member onto the deck of the Polar Star the captain asks Renko to investigate her death.  To the consternation of some of the crew Renko suspects foul play.  At first he is reluctant to investigate further, but like many of the men who encountered the woman before her death he feels drawn to her.  It soon becomes clear, however, that investigating her death might have deadly consequences.

Polar Star is the sequel to Gorky Park, the first book in the Arkady Renko series.  Set a number of years after the first book, Renko has fled his former life and colleagues, taking a succession of menial jobs, working his way east across Siberia.  He eventually finds himself working on a factory ship in the Bering Sea, processing fish caught by American trawlers.  When a young woman is dragged from the sea by a net, Renko is persuaded to turn investigator once again.  Given the closed setting, the woman could have only been killed by one of the Russian crew or the crews of the American trawlers; she was last seen on the stern of the factory boat after a party on-board which the Americans attended.  It’s a neat set-up, made more compelling by the number of potential suspects given the woman’s promiscuity, the secrets held by many of the crew, their reluctance to aid Renko, especially since his investigation seems likely to cancel shore leave after four months of sea, and the inherent suspicion between Russians and Americans.  Smith gives a real sense of life on-board a factory ship operating in freezing territory and the uneasy thawing of relations been cold war rivals.  He slowly winds up the intrigue and tension, with the plot unfolding towards a nice denouement. The only flat note is the sense that Renko should have been dead within the first third of the tale and somehow manages to stay alive despite the many opportunities to kill and dispose of him.  Indeed, that he’s alive at the end of the book is something of a miracle.   Nonetheless, Polar Star is a gripping crime thriller.

Review of The Whitehall Mandarin by Edward Wilson (Arcadia, 2014)

William Catesby has risen from working class Suffolk lad via Cambridge and SOE to a SIS player.  Jeffers Cauldwell is a rich American from the deep south, cultural attache in London, and a communist spy.  Cauldwell and his network of agents are Catesby’s target. Cauldwell is soon caught, but his network remain at large.  When a Russian spy offers his services to British intelligence he reveals that the KGB’s network in Britain has apparently been taken over, most probably by communists who have swapped allegiance to the Chinese.  Moreover, SIS suspect that there’s a spy somewhere near the very top of Whitehall, quite possibly Lady Penelope Somers.  Catesby travels to Moscow and then Vietnam seeking answers, knowing that he is putting his own life in danger.

The Whitehall Mandarin is the fourth in Edward Wilson’s spy novels set in the 1950s/60s.  The premise is an intriguing one – how did the Chinese manage to catch up in the nuclear arms race so quickly?  Wilson’s answer weaves an expansive plot that criss-crosses the UK, United States, Cuba, Russia and Vietnam - touching on events such as the Bay of Pigs, the Profumo affair and British upper class sex scandals, the start of the Vietnam war - with William Catesby seeking to solve the puzzle and plug the leaking of UK secrets.  It’s an ambitious plot and while the book is very readable, the story is somewhat uneven in pace and concentration with some scenes/escapades short and punchy and others drawn out, and the credibility of the plot is stretched to breaking point a few times, not least in the denouement.  The result is an entertaining spy tale, but one that veers towards Frederick Forsyth when it might have better to have stuck more with the John Le Carre undertones.  Nonetheless, I’m looking to the next in the loose series, A Very British Ending.

Review of The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin (Phoenix, 2004)

Moscow, May 1876.  A young man enters Alexander Gardens, propositions a rich young woman, then when rejected puts a pistol to his head and pulls the trigger.  The case is initially ruled as a tragic suicide, but novice detective, Erast Fandorin, is not convinced.  Suspicious of the circumstances of the death and the conditions of the will he starts to investigate.  He is soon drawn into the orbit of a beautiful woman with a harem of gentleman admirers and is witness to a murder.  Having persuaded his boss to allow him to follow the trail, Fandorin heads from Moscow to London, slowly becoming aware that he has stumbled on a worldwide conspiracy, placing his life in mortal danger.

The Winter Queen is a historical conspiracy tale, following the exploits of a dashing young detective, Erast Fandorin, as he seeks to foil a dangerous plot in late nineteenth century Moscow.  It’s billed on the cover as ‘Sherlock Holmes meets James Bond’, the tale is knowingly a little fanciful, focusing on the dastardly plans of a shadowy organisation.  Whilst it’s got many of the essential ingredients for such a story, the only real mystery is how the detective could not fathom the conspiracy when it is in plain sight to the reader.  Moreover, the conspiracy requires a little too much suspension of disbelief at times.  Fandorin is portrayed as a hero with much promise as a detective, and whilst he does manage to solve the case by following his intuition, he is also naive and makes some very poor decisions along the way, relying on the intervention of others and luck.  The result is that after a decent start the story is largely held together by its swashbuckling endeavours, its portrayal of upper class Moscow and its hierarchical societal structures, and pace.

Review of Cross of Iron by Willi Heinrich (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1956)

Spring 1943 and the Germans are slowly retreating across the Kuban peninsula, east of Crimea.  Steiner and his platoon are left as a rear-guard whilst the rest of the regiment fall back to take up new positions.  Their job is to try and delay the Russian advance, then rejoin their comrades, sneaking through enemy lines if need be.  It’s pretty much a suicide mission, but if anyone can navigate through the swamps, forests and enemy soldiers it’s Corporal Rolf Steiner.  Since the death of his girlfriend in a mountaineering accident just prior to the war, Steiner has had little regard for his own life or others.  It makes him an excellent soldier, but one that is essentially a loner who doesn’t care about rank, protocol or medals.  His platoon look to him for guidance.  His superiors like his can-do attitude, but not his insubordination.  In general, both are prepared to tolerate his prickly personality because of his inherent leadership, cunning and bravery, especially in difficult and dangerous situations.  And if Steiner succeeds in leading his platoon back to the frontline, they’re still two thousand kilometres from home, facing a Russian army determined to destroy them.

Cross of Iron is considered one of the classic combat novels about the Eastern Front in World War Two.  First published in 1955 (German) and translated in 1956, it is written by Willi Heinrich, who served with the 101st Jäger Division from 1941-45 and was wounded five times.  The 101st Jäger Division took part in the Battle for Kharkov and Caucasus campaign, then after the defeat at Stalingrad retreated along the Kuban peninsula toward Crimea, up into Ukraine, through Slovakia, Hungary and ending the war in Austria, suffering seven hundred per cent casualties.  Heinrich’s intimate knowledge of warfare and the terrain of battle, the personal dynamics between comrades, and the politics and ambitions of military leaders are clearly evident in narrative.  The story follows Corporal Rolf Steiner, a classic anti-hero, and members of his platoon and their immediate superiors.  The setup is very nicely done, tracing Steiner’s personal and collective battles, especially his relationship with his platoon members and Captain Stransky, his aristocratic battalion commander who desires the coveted cross of iron but does not want to earn it.  Rather than glorifying the war action, Heinrich instead delivers gritty social realism -- the daily grind of staying alive, everyday encounters with wounds and death, petty and class politics and personal rivalries, the formation of bonds between men who would never otherwise associate with one another, and the brutality of close quarter fighting.  The result is a compelling, sometimes harrowing, read, with a strong storyline and characterisation.

Review of Zugzwang by Ronan Bennett (Bloomsbury, 2007)

Dr Otto Spethmann is a widowed psychoanalyst working in St Petersburg in 1914, a city bracing itself for an impending war with Germany, whilst also in turmoil as reactionary forces seek to foment a revolution.  Amongst his patients are Anna Petrovna, a rich heiress who is troubled by a past event, and Avrom Rozental, a chess master on the verge of a nervous breakdown who is about to take part in a tournament, whom his famous musician friend and chess rival, Kopelzon, has asked him to treat.  As a chess player, Spethmann is keen to help Rozental overcome his demons, but he’s distracted by his attraction to Anna and a murder that the police have linked to him and his daughter, Catherine.  Despite his efforts to distance himself from the case, including seeking the intervention of influential citizens such as Anna’s father, Spethmann finds himself the target of a persistent police officer who suspects him of being implicated in a revolutionary plot to kill the Tsar.  Whichever way he turns he appears to be in Zugzwang: a position in chess in which a player is obliged to move, but every move available will only make his position worse.

Zugzwang moves along at quick clip, the story laced with intrigue and twists.  The historical context of St Petersburg in 1914, and its various conspiracies and revolutionary plots, forms a nice backdrop to the story without dominating the narrative.  The characterisation is well realised, if a little clichéd at times, and whilst the writing is engaging and plot intricate, the tale felt a little over-contrived, with various, complex inter-relations between several characters and interweaving subplots.  This is partly a result of Bennett seemingly trying to position every major character in a position of Zugzwang.  One nice touch is the inclusion of a chess game (including a picture of the board, the positions of the pieces and the moves) between Spethmann and his friend, Kopelzon, that mirrors Spethmann’s movement through the plot.  Overall, an enjoyable, if melodramatic, page-turner with an interesting backdrop.  

Review of The Twelfth Department by William Ryan (Mantle, 2013)

Moscow, 1937, Captain Korolev, a divorced detective with the local militia is looking forward to spending a week with his young son, who is visiting him for the first time in a while.  He’s barely met Yuri off the train when he’s asked to investigate the death of an important scientist, shot in the back of the head in his exclusive apartment near to the Kremlin.  The scientist has managed to rise up the greasy pole to attain his own research institute through a mix of promising results from dubious science and denouncing colleagues.  Korolev knows the case is a poisoned chalice given the interest of a colonel in the Twelfth Department of the NKVD and he’s relieved when it’s taken away from him.  His respite is short-lived, however.  Not only is he directed back to the case, but he becomes a pawn between two sparring NKVD departments and Yuri disappears.  The challenge is to solve the case whilst negotiating a booby-trapped tightrope in a country where failure has dire consequences and to save his son.  No easy task, but at least he’s armed with tact and guile, and has the support of friends and enemies, all of whom may share his fate if he fails.

The Twelfth Department is the third instalment in Korolev series and sees the detective back in his native Moscow after his excursion to the Ukraine in his last outing.  Ryan does an admirable job of recreating the tension and paranoia of pre-war Russia, and the ways in which ordinary people try to survive and get by in the system.  Korolev is canny, street-wise and willing to take a risk, but he isn’t corrupt nor anti-establishment, instead trying to be a good citizen and comrade in a regime that oppresses many.  Given his job, he is tested often, and in The Twelfth Department Ryan provides a nice conumdrum to solve both in terms of the case and in surviving being a pawn in a game between NKVD departments.  Indeed, this is a well-paced, plot-driven story, and whilst the characters are nicely penned, they are caught in the moment of the story and the reader learns little of their back story or wider situation and it would be interesting to learn a little more about Korolev and his colleagues in the next book.  In compensation, there is a strong sense of place, good contextualisation, and vivid atmosphere.  Overall, an enjoyable read and solid addition to what is shaping up to be a very good series. 

I was fortunate enough to be send an advance copy by the publisher and The Twelfth Department is not published until May, so you have plenty of time to get your advanced order in.

Review of Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Simon and Schuster, 2008)

1953 at the tail end of Stalin’s rein, paranoia and fear pervade society, with millions being denounced and sent to the gulags in the quest to create a perfect society.  Leo Demidov is an idealistic agent of the system who works for the state security service, the MGB, investigating and arresting enemies of the state.  Whilst Leo is aware of the political machinations within his own organisation, he does not question the system as a whole.  However, his idealistic veil is slowly removed, first through having to persuade a colleague that in a country with zero crime his young son could not have been murdered, then witnessing the death of an innocent man at the hands of a MGB colleague, and being asked to investigate the political activities of his wife.  Denounced, he is exiled to a new city and demoted to the bottom rung of the militia.  There he discovers that child murderer is at work; a murderer the state refuses to acknowledge exists.  Determined to investigate further, he’s forced to go on the run in order to bring the killer to justice.

Child 44 is an assured and competent debut.  The novel starts with a well crafted opening hook and unfolds at a steady pace.  The historical contextualisation and sense of place is good throughout, with Smith depicting a paranoid and oppressed society where even the security services and family members are afraid of each other.  The characterisation is solid, especially the idealistic and often naive Leo Demidov, and his more worldly-wise wife, Raisa.  The prose is for the most part fairly workmanlike and the story fits the category of historical police procedural thriller, rather than a literary novel, as I’ve seen it described elsewhere.  The plotting is well handled up until near the end.  The twist was purely a literary device and undermined the credibility of the story.  It could have been resolved in a more straightforward manner, which for me at least would have been more satisfactory.  Overall, an engaging and crafted story with a contrived resolution.