Blood and rubles

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

Crime in post-communist Russia has only gotten worse: rubles are scarce; blood, plentiful. In the eyes of Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov and his metropolitan police team, newfound democracy has unleashed the desperation that pushes people over the edge, and has emboldened those already on the path to hell. A trio of nasty cases confirms their worst fears. Deputy Inspector Sasha Tkach must find the murderous thieves who have terrorized an impoverished neighborhood. His bloodstained quarry turns out to be a gang of brothers, aged seven, nine, and eleven years old. Policewoman Elena Timofeyeva joins the tax police in a raid on a house filled with Czarist treasures, worth billions of rubles. The next day every last relic and work of art has disappeared without a trace. And relentless Inspector Emil Karpo will not rest until he finds the Mafia beasts who killed the only woman he has ever loved in a bloody drive-by shooting - Karpo intends to punish them his way.