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Kyiv Mysteries #3
by Andrey Kurkov
In this riveting installment in the Kyiv Mysteries series, detective Samson investigates the sudden disappearance of a troop of Red Army soldiers from a bathhouse.
Fresh from the case of the stolen heart, one that shattered his belief in the regime he works for, Samson Kolechko is confronted by a new mystery that borders on the impossible. A troop of Red Army soldiers has disappeared without a trace while visiting a banya, a traditional Ukrainian bathhouse, in the heart of Kyiv. Their abandoned boots and uniforms are the only proof that they ever existed.
Faced with such a fantastical conundrum, Samson must resort to a fantastical investigation method: stitching his operative severed ear into a bathhouse worker's jacket, he is able to eavesdrop on his every move. But he discovers far more than he bargained for, further complicating matters when he uncovers human remains in the stoves and the presence of a sinister religious cult in the city.
With his quick-witted new wife Nadezhda at his side, Samson must not only solve the case but navigate the political turmoil that still grips Kyiv as civil war looms and trust between neighbors and comrades is eroded day by day. In this third volume, Andrey Kurkov, Ukraine's greatest living novelist, and a true master of absurd storytelling, vividly depicts a city filled with political turbulence and eccentric characters—and draws playful parallels with the present day.
"The absurdity of war and its aftermath hang over Kurkov's elegantly satirical series of Kyiv Mysteries ... [The Lost Soldiers is] a Kafkaesque journey through postrevolutionary Kyiv... . Though his tale is set more than a century ago, its parallels to conditions today are clear. A darkly comic mystery with deep roots in history." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Excellent ... Kurkov excels at capturing the profound political instability of war-torn Kyiv, where citizens walk around with three forms of currency in their pockets: czarist kopecks, Kerensky rubles, and Soviet rubles. These details, and lingering questions about whether daily life under such circumstances might snuff out Samson's tenderness, deepen the tension of the impossible crime at the novel's core. This series continues to impress." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
This information about The Lost Soldiers 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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