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    The Holy Thief: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Holy Thief: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Holy Thief: A Novel
    Ebook390 pages6 hours

    The Holy Thief: A Novel

    By William Ryan

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Taut, atmospheric, and electrifying, this stunning first novel brings Stalinist-era Moscow to heart-beating life and shows us how good, how rich, and how satisfying a thriller can be.

    Moscow, 1936, and Stalin's Great Terror is beginning. In a deconsecrated church, a young woman is found dead, her mutilated body displayed on the altar for all to see. Captain Alexei Korolev, finally beginning to enjoy the benefits of his success with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Moscow Militia, is asked to investigate. But when he discovers that the victim is an American citizen, the NKVD—the most feared organization in Russia—becomes involved. Soon, Korolev's every step is under close scrutiny and one false move will mean exile to The Zone, where enemies of the Soviet State, both real and imagined, meet their fate in the frozen camps of the far north.

    Committed to uncovering the truth behind the gruesome murder, Korolev enters the realm of the Thieves, rulers of Moscow's underworld. As more bodies are discovered and pressure from above builds, Korolev begins to question who he can trust and who, in a Russia where fear, uncertainty and hunger prevail, are the real criminals. Soon, Korolev will find not only his moral and political ideals threatened, but also his life.

    With Captain Alexei Korolev, William Ryan has given us one of the most compelling detectives in modern literature, a man dogged and humble, a man who will lead us through a fear-choked Russia to find the only thing that can save him or any of us— the truth.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateAug 31, 2010
    ISBN9781429966030
    Unavailable
    The Holy Thief: A Novel
    Author

    William Ryan

    William Ryan is the author of five novels, including the Captain Korolev series which have been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year. His latest books are A House of Ghosts (2018). William teaches on the Crime Writing Masters at City University in London and the Writers & Artists 'Your Novel' writing course.

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    Reviews for The Holy Thief

    3.5/5

    14 ratings13 reviews

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    • 3/5

      In 1936, during the height of Stalinism, Moscow CID detective Alexei Korolev investigates a series of horrific killings and discovers they're linked to an illicit plot to export a particular icon to the West, where it'll fetch a huge price. Making life extra difficult for Korolev is the fact that the NKVD (precursor of the infamous KGB) is involved in the case as well; somehow he must solve it without guaranteeing himself a one-way ticket to the Lubianka and then, beyond, to the gulags . . .

      Some elements of this book very well. In a distantly similar way to Catch 22 it conveyed the sense of the world being ruled by cockeyed logic; at the end of each reading session I found myself having to make a conscious effort to stop being quite that paranoid. But the writing plods quite a lot (see below), and there are some irking irrelevant digressions as if the author had been told it'd give his text a bit more of yer upmarket clarse if he put in these little sidebars, as it were. I also got fed up Real Fast with the cheesy, adoring, meticulous stream-of-killer's-consciousness-like descriptions of the murders. I'm uncertain as to why Minotaur should have been so rocked by the manuscript that (according to the ARC I read) they gave the book an initial 125,000 print run.

      I assume Korolev's adventures have by now become a series (I know, I know: I should check) and that Ryan's learning as he goes along. If I trip over a later volume I may very well pick it up -- as I say, I did like the way the mise-en-scene tampered with my thinking -- but I have no great urgency to search one out.

      As for the lumpen writing? Well . . .

      ===

      The last time he'd seen her she'd been lively, despite being up to her elbows in a decapitation. (p43)

      ===

      Two sad brown eyes started at his waist and worked their way up. (p154)

      ===

      Babel seemed oblivious to the fact that Korolev's blood had concentrated in his toes. (p163)

      ===

      The bullets flung the man off the end of the rifle, a look of surprise in his already dead eyes. (p236)


    • 4/5
      Good read, but as it's set in 1930's Moscow, many of the names are hard to keep associated, and there's the formal name, the informal name, the nickname, all for the same person. Also, a little background into the class structure would have been helpful as a foreword or something, as it took most of the book to figure out why everyone was tiptoeing around different castes.
    • 4/5
      Step into 1930s Moscow, with everyone afraid of Stalin's Secret police, the regular citizens as well as the Komsomol and the Militia. When a woman and a thief are both found horribly tortured before they were killed, Captain Korolev is called upon to investigate the murders. When General Gregorin of the NKVD summons Korolev and shows an interest in these murders as well, demanding daily reports, Korolev knows he's potentially stepping into a minefield, with one misstep leading to his arrest and incarceration in Lubianka.His investigations lead him to the underground network of Thieves, a gang of street urchins, an author with surprising connections, an American broker of Russian artifacts, and unknown assailants with a penchant for hitting him on his head. While trying to uncover not just the identity of the murderer and the reason why the woman, who turns out to have been a nun, the thief and later a member of the NKVD were murdered, Korolev's investigations leads him to discover the identity of the item that they gave up their lives for. This is a wonderful thriller from start to finish. The bonus for me in reading this is knowing this is the first in a series ...I can't wait to get to the next one.
    • 2/5
      I tried and tried to get through this story and it bore me. I read the first 100 pages of the book and the story barely developed. The author uses too many words to describe or explain a simple subject or scene. I give it a two-star rating simply because the author is very creative with his writing, but excessively verbose.
    • 3/5
      I have mixed feelings about this book. It was a mystery and it did have action, but there was just a bit drawn out. I would have been happier with this book if there were a few less twists and turns.

      I think that my brain might be a bit slow on the uptake as well. Due to the unfamiliar and difficult names I had real problems keeping the minor characters straight. This led to some really confusing moments. Also, a few times something seemed to be missing, like a bridging paragraph between action sequences perhaps. I reread a few parts because I couldn't quite figure out what had actually happened. In the end I just gave up and kept going forward.

      I'm not sure if I should recommend this - it was a bit too confusing. However, I will say that if you into Soviet crime books and you have a better brain for picking up really tiny facts during action scenes this might be for you.
    • 5/5
      What a great beginning to a new detective series! It's 1936 Moscow, and amid the early stirrings of Stalin's purges, a police captain catches a series of nasty murders which quickly involve him with the NKVD (later the KGB) and international art smuggling by the government. It's a depressing and unnerving setting, but the characters and mystery are interesting and the dialogue is perfect. There's quite a bit of vivid victim detail, so this is not for the squeamish.One of the most interesting aspects of this novel is the captain's internal musings on the new Soviet system. Unlike the main character in "Child 44", who has experienced WWII and been a knowing participant in Stalin's atrocities, the detective here still has hope for Communism, as well as a willingness to suspend judgment of Stalin's methods in hope that life will improve for ordinary citizens. The 21st-century reader, of course, contributes a sense of doom and wonderment that people could have been so naive in the face of such already-evident evil.
    • 1/5
      Well there goes eight quid I'll never get back :(
    • 3/5
      People are dying and Alexei is working the case. Religious icons are at the root of the problem and deaths keep showing up in churching which are now on the endangered list. Russia at the beginning of communism.
    • 4/5
      A great new series. Only two complaints first - since he isn't Russian I would be careful about taking what he says about Soviet and especially post Soviet (from the interview at the end of the book) life as definitely true. Also, it seemed like he couldn't quite make the mystery long enough so he drew out the end of the book with lots of captures. Otherwise this was very entertaining and I will definitely read the next one.
    • 3/5
      This was a pretty good book. It painted an interesting portrait of what life was like in the USSR between WWI and WWII - both the corruption in the government as well as the mindset of the people who were trying to support an idea (communism) that they honestly thought would work. The plot was pretty good, too, though it seemed to fizzle out a bit at the end instead of ramping up. still, decent characters, good plotline, and well-written. Since I listened to this on disk, my only complaint is that, because it was read by someone with a British accent, the reader gave everyone varying degrees of British accents (e.g. - Cockney for the thieves, etc.). Since the entire story took place in Moscow, this was a bit disconcerting and out-of-place.
    • 4/5
      Good murder mystery set against the background of Stalin's purges in 1936, just at the time when Yezhov took over from Yagoda and repression stepped up a gear. The author recreates well the oppressive political atmosphere and the deprivation suffered by most people. The actual plot about smuggling icons is okay, if a little unlikely in places.
    • 5/5
      In an author's note on the final pages of THE HOLY THIEF he writes I've done my best to recreate 1930s Moscow accurately in this book, but it should be remembered that it remains a work of fiction and that I've allowed myself some flexibility from time to time, particularly with regard to the interiors of buildings. For any inaccuracies that aren't deliberate, I apologize.The story is a reminder that even in times of great political turbulence crimes are still committed and policemen are still required. Often the criminal and the political are enmeshed with each side playing the system to their own advantage. In the case of Communist Russia of 1936, at the end of the first Five Year Plan, not everyone has the welfare of the State in mind, and capitalists are only too willing to take advantage of a society in a state of terror.Captain Alexei Dimitrevich Korolev, veteran of the War against Germany, is a very well drawn character, who comes to the realisation that his assignation to the murder investigation smacks of manipulation. It is difficult in this volatile Russia to know who to trust, and sometimes knowledge can be very dangerous.THE HOLY THIEF has all the elements you look for in good historical crime fiction: authentic historical settings and details, and intriguing story threads, and credible characters.
    • 4/5
      Eens wat anders dan mijn normale genre.

      Leuk geschreven boek. Speelt zich af in Moskou tijdens de Stalin periode (1936). De vervolging van anti-communisten is wijdverspreid en gewone burgers worden geterroriseerd. Verder is het het begin van de winter en heeft niemand genoeg te eten of kleding omte dragen.

      Hoewel het plot redelijk voorspelbaar is, leidt dat niet teveel af van het verhaal. Wat lastig was was de Russische gewoonte om de voor- en middelste namen in verschillende combinaties te gebruiken, afhankelijk van de intimiteit tussen de sprekers. Op momenten had ik zoiets van 'wie is dat nou weer'.