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The Kyiv Mysteries #2
by Andrey Kurkov
In the follow-up to The Silver Bone, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2024, Samson Kolechko must rescue his kidnapped fiancée while investigating the illegal sale of meat in lawless 1920s Kyiv— based on a real-life case.
Samson Kolechko and his colleague have been dispatched to investigate the illegal sale of meat. How selling cuts of one's own livestock qualifies as a crime eludes the young investigator, but an order is an order, and, at the insistence of the secret police officer assigned to "reinforce" the Lybid police station, Samson vows to do his very best.
But just as Samson is beginning to dig into the very meat of this case, his live-in fiancée Nadezhda is abducted by striking railway workers who object to the census she's carrying out. Complicating matters, the police station has been infiltrated by a mysterious thief, a deadly tram accident—which may have been premeditated—disrupts the city, and, to top it all, the culprit from Samson's "silver bone" investigation may have resurfaced.
Against this backdrop, it's no wonder the "meat case" takes a backseat. Yet, despite the rising danger, the detective cannot let himself be distracted from his dogged pursuit of the seemingly mundane matter of the meat sellers, for ultimately his fate, and Nadezhda's too, rests on it.
"[An] extraordinary sequel ... Kurkov captures the atmosphere of 1920s Kyiv with terse, poetic prose, and punctuates his crackerjack plot with gorgeous Proustian reflections ... Distinguished by its humor, heart, and subtle political urgency, this series deserves a long life." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[The Stolen Heart marks] a welcome return to post-revolutionary Kyiv." —Kirkus Reviews
This information about The Stolen Heart was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ukraine's most celebrated novelist, Andrey Kurkov was a journalist, prison warder, cameraman and screenplay writer before becoming a novelist. His books include the 2024 International Booker Prize-longlisted The Silver Bone, the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award–winning Grey Bees, and the international bestseller Death and the Penguin. He is also a commentator and journalist reporting on Ukraine for the international media. He lives with his family in Kyiv.
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