The Twelfth Department - William Ryan

‘It’s said you get the job done, no matter what the risks or the obstacles.’

This is the third adventure in the now established series of historical crime novels from William Ryan set in 1930s Stalinist Russia, and featuring the brilliant lead character Captain Alexei Korolev of the Moscow Militia. I've really enjoyed this series thus far, each book has offered intriguing storylines set during a fascinating time and place in history with just enough period detail, and this third novel is no exception. 

This time, it's 1937 and Korolev's investigations into the murder of a top scientist lead him to become more involved than ever with the NKVD, the feared State Security service, becoming caught between two different departments who are at odds with each other. When another scientist is killed, and Korolev starts to discover what they were working on, things start to get rather complicated and dangerous to say the least.

Amongst all this, Korolev also finally has a visit from his son Yuri, who he sees very little of. He had planned some time off to spend with him, however, both the time off work and the happiness of this reunion are shortlived, and soon there is great anxiety for Korolev as young Yuri goes missing, making this investigation very personal.

There are so many conflicts for Korolev; wanting to do the right thing, yet not step out of line, making sure to be seen to be adhering to the will of his superiors, but solve the crime thoroughly and as effectively as he'd like to – he ‘always gets his man, come hell or high water’ – plus he has to find his missing son whilst not neglecting his investigations - so difficult and thus giving plenty of depth to his character and to the tale. As Korolev himself exclaims, in a great little exchange with Dubinkin, describing his difficult situation, ‘It feels like I’m a football being kicked around a field.’

I've said before that Korolev is an engaging, affable and moral lead character and I'll stick by that opinion here. He's imbued with humour and a sense of decency, and is liked by others, and he’s able to form working relationships with people from all levels of the society he exists in. I particularly liked the interaction between Korolev and Count Kolya, Chief of the Moscow Thieves, in this installment.

I love the author's writing style. There's a definitive, distinctive voice there telling the story; not intrusive, but certainly in control, and with a nice touch of dry humour at times. It feels as though the author has grasped the atmosphere of the times and conveyed it in his story so that as we are reading, the past is evoked for us and we get a real sense of the fear, secrecy and paranoia coursing through this society. 

There's enough here for a reader new to the series to pick up the background and enjoy it. Nevertheless I'd recommend reading the first two novels ideally (links to my reviews below) to get the most enjoyment out of it. 

I am firmly hooked on this series now and already wondering what is next in store for Korolev.

My reviews of The Holy Thief  and The Bloody Meadow.

Published by Mantle, an imprint of Pan Macmillan

Find the author on twitter @WilliamRyan_ and visit his website here to find out more - it's a really interesting companion to the books.

Thank you to the author and the publisher for kindly sending me a copy of this novel to read and review. 

Book Beginnings (7) - The Twelfth Department - William Ryan

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays

The idea, as stated on the host's blog, is 'to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.' There's a hash tag #BookBeginnings for twitter etc too, and a master linky list on the host's blog. I've got a couple of books on the go at the moment so I've just picked one out to mention here.

My Book Beginning

The Twelfth Department by William Ryan

Published by Mantle, an imprint of Pan Macmillan

'Patriarch's ponds was one of Korolev's favourite corners of Moscow - a small park with a square shaped lake around which, especially on a hot summer's day like this, white-shirted men and their befrocked womenfolk strolled with slow steps. At the southern end a white colonnaded pavillion stood where, for a reasonable price, a citizen could sip a glass of tea and sit and watch the ducks. '

I'm really excited to be reading this and I can't wait to see what challenges Captain Korolev will face in this latest installment - I loved the first two novels in this series set in 1930s Russia (see below for links to my reviews). I think it's safe to assume that as we meet him again, Korolev will have more on his mind than just sitting and watching the ducks...

Here's the synopsis from goodreads:

Captain Alexei Korolev has nothing to complain about. He has his own room in an apartment, a job in the police force that puts food on the table, and his good health. In Moscow in 1937, that’s a lot more than most people have to be grateful for. But for the first time in a long time, Korolev is about to be truly happy: his son Yuri is coming to visit for an entire week.

Shortly after Yuri’s arrival, however, Korolev receives an urgent call from his boss—it seems an important man has been murdered, and Korolev is the only detective they’re willing to assign to this sensitive case. In fact, Korolev realizes almost immediately that the layers of sensitivity and secrecy surrounding this case far exceed his paygrade. And the consequences of interfering with a case tied to State Security or the NKVD can be severe—you might lose your job, if you’re lucky. Your whole family might die if you’re not. Korolev is suddenly faced with much more than just discovering a murderer’s identity; he must decide how far he’ll go to see justice served . . . and what he’s willing to do to protect his family.

In The Twelfth Department, William Ryan's portrait of a policeman struggling to survive in one of the most volatile and dangerous eras of modern history is mesmerizing.

You can read my reviews of the first two novels featuring Captain Korolev here:

The Holy Thief

The Bloody Meadow

The Bloody Meadow - William Ryan

'The Bloody Meadow will be a dagger into the hearts of the Revolution's enemies.'

This is the second novel to feature Captain Alexei Korolev, the first being The Holy Thief. Set in 1937, The Bloody Meadow of the title is the name of a film being shot in the Ukraine. When Maria Lenskaya, a beautiful young woman working as a production assistant on the film, is found dead, Korolev is dispatched from Moscow to discover the truth about her apparent suicide. After his involvement in a serious investigation assisting the NKVD, the state security service, the previous year, he had been hoping 'to keep well clear of anything connected with the Chekists until they forgot he'd ever existed'. However, he finds himself back assisting them again with this case in Odessa, a case in which no less than the head of the NKVD, Commissar Ezhov, has a particular interest.

The film's storyline is required to convey the correct message, namely loyalty to the State and the Party, and deviation from this will bring trouble for the director and the production team. The writer Babel, whom Korolev befriended in The Holy Thief, makes a reappearance here assisting with the film. Korolev teams up with a new assistant in the Ukraine, Sergeant Slivka, a junior detective from Odessa, who proves to be a good match for him as they make their way through questioning everyone on set and staying in the former grand country house, a 'remnant of a bygone age' that is now an agricultural college, and where many of the film crew have temporarily based themselves.

As we first saw in The Holy Thief, Korolev still has mixed feelings about his country and the direction it is going in. On the one hand, 'he felt a surge of pride that he was fortunate enough to be a Soviet citizen, living in the capital of a country that was leading the world by example.' On the other hand, he sees the fear in people all around him, and he personally also still has 'allegiances to individuals and beliefs that would put him at risk if they ever came to light.'

The citizens are always on their guard, cautious about what they say, so fearful of potential consequences under Stalin's rule. Instead, as Korolev observes, '...much of a Soviet citizen's conversation these days involved the unsaid, the oblique and euphemistic. Some intellectual would no doubt make a study, in due course, of the ability of Soviet citizens to communicate without saying quite what they meant.'

This intelligent historical mystery had me gripped throughout the time I was reading it. It is well plotted and evokes the atmosphere of the times vividly, conveying to us a sense of the horror that was inflicted on the Ukraine through Korolev's eyes as he arrives there. The historical background is convincing and the scene is always set for us, but this detail never overshadows the intriguing characters or the strong mystery plot. Korolev is a very likeable lead character; it's easy to get behind him and will him to succeed in his investigation despite the many obstacles that are strewn in his path as people are so reluctant or fearful of divulging the truth. I feel his character grows in this book, as we learn more about the man. He has a constant struggle to try and remain first and foremost an honest man, doing his duty, whilst trusting in the Party to bring about a better future, and yet secretly maintaining his religious beliefs. Korolev is determined to find the real culprit here and not be satisfied, as he knows some amongst his colleagues are, to simply make an arrest. As he says of his investigative style; 'I just shake the tree till all the apples come down, then work out which one is the rotten one. I don't presume it's the first that falls into my lap.'

As more secrets are uncovered, the layers of the mystery deepen and the plot builds to a thrilling finish in Odessa. I enjoyed this story as much as, if not more than, The Holy Thief. I am really looking forward to reading the next offering from this author and to catching up with Captain Korolev once again.

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You can visit the author's website here to find a lot of further information about the background to Korolev's world including some fascinating photographs, and you can also follow the author on twitter @WilliamRyan_

Published by Pan on 15 March 2012 in paperback and e-book editions - available now.

Thank you very much to the publisher for sending me a copy of this novel to read and review.

(Please note this novel has the title The Darkening Field in the US.)

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The Holy Thief - William Ryan

'These days it seemed everything in Moscow became dirty after a little while.'

It is 1936, and the setting is Moscow, nineteen years after the Revolution, and at the start of Stalin's Great Terror. The body of a woman, tortured and killed, is found in a church, and Captain Alexei Koralev of the Moscow Militia's Criminal Investigation Division is tasked with looking into the case. Although they are treating the murder as a criminal investigation, Korolev is asked to report details of it to Staff Colonel Gregorin, a member of the NKVD, the feared state security service, who dealt with political crimes. An interesting and mixed team of colleagues are introduced to us at the Militia's Petrovka Street headquarters, and Korolev is given junior lieutenant Semionov to assist him with this investigation. Semionov has only been with the team a couple of months and has an enthusiasm that Korolev is encouraged by, even if he has to temper it a little at times. 

The main narrative concentrates on Korolev's investigation, but there are a few short sinister episodes with the murderer, which are dotted within the story. The crimes relate to a valuable stolen Russian icon. The tense, nervous atmosphere of the times, and the overriding feeling of fear and suspicion amongst the population of the country at that time is captured here, where 'even the innocent were jumping at shadows these days.' 

Korolev is in his early forties, divorced, and good at heart. He genuinely believes in the Party line and their intentions for the future, but he also still quietly maintains his own religious beliefs. Shortly after he is first introduced, he visits his immediate boss, General Popov, to wrap up the previous case he'd been working on, and we learn more about his achievements and his character through the praise he receives:

'You did a good job here. An excellent job. Not the first time, of course. I give you all the hard cases, the crimes that look like they've been committed by ghosts, and yet you always find the devils and bring them to me. The highest conviction rate in the division and you don't even beat the confessions out of them.'

He is intelligent, methodical and thorough, and he is determined to find the real perpetrators, unlike one of his colleagues who 'argued that, even if they weren't guilty of the crime in question, the people he convicted were certainly guilty of something.' However, Korolev isn't soft and nor is he naive; he knows that when he is told to only report certain aspects of an incident to certain people, and no one else, that's what he has to do. There are events he is part of that can't be reported on, or he is told afterwards that they 'never happened'. During his investigations, 'he plowed his way through the grimy reality of Soviet life'. He encounters a whole range of characters from Moscow's underworld, from street children whose parents are likely to have permanently 'disappeared', to the Thieves - the criminals who dominate the underworld. He meets an American who has dealings with the NKVD, handling religious artifacts that are sold overseas, and he has to tread a fine line between uncovering the truth and getting in too deep with dangerous people as his inquiries move on and the evidence throws up some disturbing truths. 

This is an exciting and atmospheric historical crime novel with an intriguing plot and well-drawn characters. Moreover, the author has chosen a fascinating setting and period as the backdrop for the novel and then captured it convincingly, adding much authentic detail but never overwhelming the reader or holding up the plot. I found it a real page-turner; I was eager to read on. Captain Korolev is a very likeable, engaging, moral lead character and it's not difficult to want to root for him throughout. I will definitely be back to follow Korolev in his next investigation!

5/5

Thank you very much to the author for sending me a copy of this novel to read and provide an honest review.

Published by Pan and available to buy now in paperback and e-book formats.

You can visit the author's website to find out more about the investigations of Captain Korolev and find out a bit more about the background to the story.


The next book in the series featuring Korolev is entitled The Bloody Meadow (The Darkening Field in the US) and is available now in hardcover and e-book editions, and in paperback on 15th March 2012.