Philip Kerr: Dead Meat (1992)

Edition: Chatto & Windus, 1993
Review number: 1093

The aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the hardships faced in Russia since seem to have fallen out of the news in recent years. This is probably both because the situation has been gradually improving and because it lacks the novelty value that makes it news in Western Europe. The time following the coup attempt in 1992 was one of great hardship throughout the former USSR, and saw the development of violent organised crime, known generically as the Russian Mafia. (In fact, of course, and as reflected in this novel, there is a lot of rivalry between different gangs, many of which have a racially based organisation, so that the Chechens and Georgians are constantly fighting, for example.) Even if everyday living is easier now, the organised crime syndicates have not gone away. In the realms of fiction, the Russian Mafia seem to be a popular subject for thrillers already. (Proof of this is that it's been used as a scenario for a James Bond film, as well as related events providing the basis for Frederick Forsyth's Icon.)

Philip Kerr's thriller is more realistic than either of these. It is about anti-Mafia units in the police force, the main character being a Moscow policeman ostensibly on a fact finding mission to study the methods used by the St Petersburg equivalent. He is actually meant to be checking that the leader of this unit, named Grushko, is as clean of corruption as he seems, as this is very unlikely in Russia in the early nineties (when inflation and shortages meant that the legitimate income of a policeman didn't go far at all). While the narrator, the Moscow cop, is in St Petersburg, a prominent anti-Mafia journalist (who likes to describe himself as Russia's first investigative journalist) is murdered, and so any consideration about bribery is taken over by the investigation into this crime.

Kerr's novel is based on considerable research, including the co-operative help of the real equivalents of Grushko. He also brings in many of the images associated with Russia in the last decade, such as an unsafe nuclear power industry, crumbling infrastructure, corruption and food queues. The setting is really well done, and makes the novel a bit different, both from the unrealistic stories I've already mentioned and from more conventional crime thrillers which have a similar style (such as Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels). Dead Meat is an engrossing thriller, if bleak, well worth reading and encouraging me to find more Philip Kerr.

Michael Frayn: The Russian Interpreter (1966)

Edition: Penguin, 1967
Review number: 835

Frayn's second novel is more interesting than his first, The Tin Men, and shows the influence of Evelyn Waugh (in, say, Scoop) rather than J.B. Priestley. Paul Manning takes on part time Russian-English interpreting while working in Moscow to complete his Ph.D. thesis. He then meets the gorgeous Raya, and begins an affair, but makes the mistake of introducing him to his employer, English businessman Gordon Proctor-Gould. Raya and Gordon begin an affair of their own but, having no language in common, have to bully Paul into acting as their interpreter.

This being Soviet Russia, political aspects to this situation quickly emerge, with the thought occurring to both Paul and Gordon that Raya might turn out to be a police spy. Raya acts quite strangely, and starts pilfering Gordon's possessions; either she is forced to steal by poverty or psychology, or the thefts have a more sinister purpose.

There are numerous parallels with Scoop, particularly in terms of the characters. Paul, for example, is very similar except for his profession, to William Boot, while Raya is reminiscent of Kätchen. However, The Russian Interpreter is nothing like as funny as Waugh and, like several other Frayn novels, leaves me thinking that he is a good playwright.

Michael Pearce: Dmitri and the One-Legged Lady (1999)

Edition: Collins, 1999
Review number: 623

The second Dmitri Kameron novel is an investigation into the theft of an icon, depicting the one-legged lady, who dedicated her life to charity after the accident which removed her limb. Like the crime in Dmitri and the Milk Drinkers, there are political overtones to the theft - the one-legged lady is particularly associated with relief from famine, and a harvest failure in the region that she originally came from has led to food riots which have attracted the attention of higher authority. Before she had been removed to a monastery near the town where Kameron practices as a lawyer, the response to the famine would have been to carry her in a procession, but this is not possible since she has been moved; ill feeling about this contributes to the general unrest.

Continuing the direction set in the first novel, Dmitri and the One-Legged Lady is enjoyable and funny, with many quick jokes reminiscent of Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon.

Derek Lambert: The Yermakov Transfer (1974)

Edition: Arlington Books, 1974
Review number: 588

The Yermakov Transfer is unusal among Cold War thrillers in being entirely set in the Soviet Union, almost all of it happening on a journey along the Trans-Siberian Railway. It is a particularly significant journey, because one of the passengers is the Russian premier, Vasily Yermakov. A group of Jewish dissidents has come up with the idea of kidnapping him, demanding that several prominent Jewish scientists be granted exit visas so that they can emigrate to Israel.

With many Russian characters, The Yermakov Transfer is a novel infused with the fear of the gulag, and it clearly shows the influence of Solzhenitsyn's Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. It is decidedly at the literary end of the thriller market, and, though its ending might be considered predictable, has plenty of excitement.

Jane Hunt: The Green Gallant (1980)

Edition: Souvenir, 1980
Review number: 543

This novel is about a Russian regiment in the Napoleonic wars (with green uniforms), not Henry IV, as a potential reader with some knowledge of French history might guess (the first Bourbon king was nicknamed "the Green Gallant"). The background is doubly unexpected - there can be few writers who have dared to write about the Russian army in this period since War and Peace.

Having said that, it should be made clear that Hunt does not try to compete with Tolstoy. The Green Gallant is a pleasant romance with no greater ambition; its story (effectively, about love for someone unattainable) is standard, the background and characters there to provide a context for the story. It is well written with convincing characters and believable (if sketchy) background.

Michael Pearce: Dmitri and the Milk Drinkers (1998)

Edition: HarperCollins, 1998
Review number: 535

The first of Michael Pearce's novels I have read is also the beginning of a new series. The setting is late nineteenth century Tsarist Russia, familiar from the great novels and plays of the period. The central character is an ambitious young lawyer, Dmitri Kameron, who is an Examining Magistrate of the district court in the provincial town of Kursk, and has moderately radical leanings.

One day at the court, he is asked by a well off young woman to direct her to the courtyard. Later, it is discovered that Anna Semenovna has gone missing, and that Dmitri was the last person to see her. He is able to work out that she offered to take the place of one of the cartload of prisoners sentenced to transportation to Siberia, and there is no alternative but to set off after her.

There is much of this plot which is reminiscent of Tolstoy's Resurrection, which also involved the pursuit of an innocent woman wrongly sent to Siberia. Pearce's novel is (not surprisingly) far less serious, and is in fact sometimes very funny, though it too has something to say about the injustice and unpleasantness of the system of Siberian exile. Much of the pleasure of the novel comes from the way that it covers the same ground as serious Russian literature, but in a light-hearted way.

Frederick Forsyth: Icon (1996)

Edition: Corgi, 1997
Review number: 389

Frederick Forsyth always has interesting ideas, but his writing never does them justice. Icon is no exception to this rule. The idea - a new Hitler attempting to take power in the chaotic ruins of a Russia devastated by mega-inflation and uncontrollable organised crime - is excellent. The major problem is the narrative style. The story takes second place to exposition of the idea - the reader does not really need pages of description of fictional Russian politics, for example. Such diversions break the tension which is needed in a thriller.

The primacy of the idea also overcomes any serious attempt at characterisation, an accusation usually levelled at science fiction rather than thrillers. Icon's characters are just ciphers and stereotypes, from Igor Komarov to the Western agents trying to prevent him from gaining power. Forsyth has bought into the idea that Western is good, Eastern bad; the Russians are corrupt, the British and Americans fighting for an ideal (except of course for Russian controlled double agents).

Like the best of Forsyth's novels, The Day of the Jackal, the idea of Icon is centred around a person. In the earlier book, this forces Forsyth to overcome his limitations as a writer of characters, but Komarov does not do this. The idea is sufficiently interesting and well enough done, however, to keep you reading to the end.