An upside-down world

Last year, with William Ryan’s The Holy Thief, detective-fiction aficionados welcomed the thrillingly horrific first instalment in a new series set in 1930s Moscow.

Last year, with William Ryan’s The Holy Thief, detective-fiction aficionados welcomed the thrillingly horrific first instalment in a new series set in 1930s Moscow. In his first outing, Alexei Dmitrievich Korolev, a detective in the Moscow militia, managed to navigate the murky waters following the fall of Yagoda, head of the NKVD, and the onslaught of Stalin’s Great Purge.