Praise for Punishment of A Hunter:'The most successful retro-detective since Akunin'Literratura'Gritty and gripping'Will Ryan'It will pull you in and leave you breathless'Chris Lloyd'Yulia Yokovleva's thrilling debut was a bestseller in her native Russia. It's not difficult to see why'The Times,Best New Crime Fiction_On the eve of Stalin's deadly great purge,a rider and his horse mysteriously collapse in the middle of a race in Leningrad.Weary detective Zaitsev,still reeling from his last brush with the Party,is dispatched to the soviet state cavalry school near Ukraine to investigate.There he witnesses the horror of the man-made Holodomor Famine as he struggles to penetrate the murky,secretive world of the school.Why has this murder attracted so much attention from Soviet officials Zaitsev needs to answer this question and solve the case before the increasingly paranoid authorities turn their attention to him...
MEDIA REVIEWS
Publisher: Pushkin PressISBN: 9781782276807Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
Offers a brilliant interplay of Communist manipulation,Soviet terror,Tsarist survivals,military rifts and kulak opposition... A superb read,with some unexpected turns right at the endYakovleva's previous novel was an international hit. The follow-up suggests her investigator may become something of a Russian MontalbanoAn atmospheric police procedural set in 1931 Leningrad,a destabilized world where the streets have been renamed for communist leaders and the rules of justice are being rewritten at every turn... All the moral murk makes for fascinating reading,and Yakovleva never lets the historical detail crowd out the central mystery. This series has legs - Praise for Punishment of a HunterYulia Yakovleva's thrilling debut was a bestseller in her native Russia. It's not difficult to see whyA masterclass in historical crime fiction set against the vividly-painted backdrop of 1930s Leningrad. It will pull you in and leave you breathlessA serial killer is at work in 1930s Leningrad. Favourite line: "This is how we live,he thought. She's lying and so am I."...a fascinating story... Beautifully translated... Punishment of a Hunter establishes Yulia Yakovleva as a talent to watchGritty and gripping,Punishment of a Hunter is top class historical crime fictionThis is the most successful reload of the retro-detective genre in Russian fiction since Akunin.Yulia Yakovleva leads the hero (as well as the reader) through every circle of Soviet hell,to a bright finale that offers both satisfaction from how the plot wraps up as well as the suggestion of an opening for a sequel.Yakovleva writes with an expert and deep knowledge of the period,and she simply writes well.Yakovleva's unobtrusive art edutainment,which introduces paintings of Botticelli,Velazquez,Van Dyck,and Rubens,is one of the true pleasures this novel offers... For Yakovleva,it is more important to understand not how the crimes were performed,but why. The author is interested first and foremost in the mechanism of how the large state evil gives birth to a private,small evil.The novel's main hero is the time period,a time marked by Petersburg's impotency and beauty,steel and bloodOutstanding... Yakovleva perfectly balances evoking the terror of living in a police state with her whodunit plotline. Fans of Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko will hope to see much more of Zaitsev.'There are fantastic comic elements to this dark novel of life under dictatorship in Stalin's Russia... On a more serious note,this story exudes the sinister atmosphere of the time,the insecurity and lack of freedom ordinary people faced.... (It's) well plotted and with intriguing characters'
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