A brilliant law student(still very much perturbed by her father's mysterious murder and slightly obsessed with serial killers)manages to find herself an internship at Moscow's police headquarters. As bodies(both of unsolved murders in the past as in the present)turn up in different parts of Moscow, Masha discovers a strange pattern relating to medieval texts,maps,the New Rome and heavenly Jerusalem. The storyline is good,the characters are believable and it is a new twist on "the serial killer". There is however one comment I would like to make. As Moscow plays such a prominent role in this story,a map of the city would have been helpful,handy...As it is,all the characters revolve around maps with different gates,walls,parks...but the reader(not a resident of Moscow)is left a bit lost.

Dear Ms Desombre:

Please consider using a different translator for your next book.

I enjoyed the story in "The Sin Collector", but Ms Fairweather-Vega's translation has stripped all the Russianness out of it. Most of the patronymics have been removed, so it jars when one pops up. Blini at breakfast are now just pancakes, and beautiful Russian onion domes have become cupolas, which architecturally they are not. Maria Fyodorovna Karavaya becomes plain Masha Karavay. Bizarrely, Detective Captain Andrey Yakolov has a "crocodile" smile, even though "krokodile" is a horrible horrible Russian drug.

Part of the reason for reading international fiction is to get a feel for a place and a culture. The Moscow presented here could be anywhere and Masha Karavay could be any law student.

I received a review copy of "The Sin Collector: Masha Karavai [sic] Detective Series" by Daria Desombre, translated by Shelley Fairweather-Vega (AmazonCrossing) through NetGalley.com. There has been some mistake made in the title on Amazon with the "Karavay" in the text becoming and "Karavai" in the online title.

The Sin Collector took me a while to get into but once the story started moving I found it was well plotted out keeping tract of the different characters and the key each ones plays in the story. Readers will have to push thought the book about 1\2 thought but they wouldn't be disappointed. I had no idea who the killer was and trust me that isn't easy.
Depending on the moment comes of the characters would come cross flat and than shine at other times.
Its fun to read books from Amazon Crossing to see how different authors from around the world view or see serial killers.
Thank you to Netgalley for the advance copy.

This book has been translated from Russian to English and whilst it has translated well there are still a lot of Russian things like food and places that i have no idea what it was but other than that, if you like foreign thrillers then this book is defiantly worth a read.
The story is told from several different view points, the main characters Andrey, the detective in charge of the case and Masha a young law student starting her internship. It also switches to Masha's childhood best friend Innokenty a historian.
The characters are really well written, and it is a really good spin on a serial killer novel.
Defiantly an author worth taking note of.

If this is the new Russian Noir, then I’m going to be reading more of this! The Moscow setting appealed and the medieval, map like city did not disappoint. This is a book with maps in the plot so I was caught up in this from the get go. A serial killer stalking and displaying their victims on the sites across the city. Crime scenes linked to the past? In such a ornamental city, historically significant and culturally special, it’s a fine backdrop to a maze of mysteries.
Medieval Moscow, well that just tingles the reading antennae straight away! Masha and Andrey are compelling characters and there are others which come and go creating a more haphazard feel to the novel, but it brings a unique angle to the serial killer genre. Think Medieval Moscow is the way to go for dark secrets and even darker crime scenes.
Grippingly gritty and maps which make for quite a trail around the city’s secrets!

The Sin Collector was originally written in Russian. This is the American translation of the book. The story is told from various perspectives which include our main characters, Masha and Andrey. The other perspectives a those of Masha's longtime friend, Inokenty and the Sin Collector. Masha is a law student doing her internship with Moscow’s Central Directorate Headquarters. Andrey is the detective she is assigned to work for. Her passion for solving crimes is related to the murder of her beloved father. While Andrey does not give much credit to Masha in the beginning and feels she was only given this internship due to nepotism, he soon becomes aware that she is a very knowledgeable and skilled detective in her own right. In addition, he notices he is starting to look at her in a more personal way. The story behind the killings this is book was very intriguing and definitely something new to this reader. This appears to be the first in the Masha Karavai detective series. This is surely a series to look forward to reading. I am giving this a 3.5 star rounded to 4.

I am shocked that I waited this long to read a book by this author. Daria did an amazing job catching the interest of the reader from almost the first page. This book was an interesting mix of mystery, romance, and suspense. I liked the chaotic relationship that developed between the two main characters Masha and Andrey, as you read their story you realize there is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding between them. Thank you NetGalley and Daria Desombre for allowing me to read this ARC and write a honest review.

Masha Karavay, a law student, lost her father to murder 10 years ago and is fascinated by serial killers, as if she can solve her father's killing by studying them. When she is hired as an intern, working at the Moscow Central Directorate Headquarters under a reluctant Detective Andrey Yakovlev, he tries to get her out of his hair by handing her a bunch of case files to study. They are all unsolved, strange, savage and involve numbers. She senses a pattern that leads her to talk to Andrey, who is extremely sceptical at first, but eventually, with the help of Masha's childhood friend, the three of them become convinced there is a twisted serial killer murdering sinners in unspeakable medieval ways. I have become tired of the serial killer genre, but somehow this felt different. The medieval aspects, the historical facts and figures, the strong feeling of actually being in Moscow...it keeps one hooked. Also, Andrey's comical relationship with 'Marilyn Monroe, the stray he's adopted (or should I say who adopted him) and his conflicted, confused feelings toward Masha, made me smile.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and hope Russian noir becomes popular and we'll get more English translations of Daria Desombre's books. Highly recommended!
Thank you Netgalley and Amazon Crossing for the eARC.

Initially, I felt like I could not get into this book at all, the Russian names and places kept tripping me up while I was reading and also the jumping between the point of views made it hard for me to get fully invested in the story. This was pretty much my thoughts for the first 20% of the book, thankfully after this, it really picked up.

In terms of characters, I really liked Masha and Andrey. The relationship between professional and intern, I think was really accurate. The fact that Andrey gave Masha a file of hopeless cases just to get her out of his hair and because Masha was genuinely interested and was wanting to impress her boss, she figured it out seemed really realistic for the setting. I really enjoyed their growing relationship although I do have a few problems with it.

So, the crime. The killer came as a full shock to me, to be honest, The character I thought it was turned out to be a victim and the actual killer was someone I never even thought twice about. So that aspect of the plot was very well written. The crime and mystery itself were really really different and interesting, I’ve never read anything like it. The combination of old Orthodox faith and medieval torture methods was so fascinating and the way Daria put everything together was amazing. It was really like pieces of a puzzle being put together very slowly to reveal the bigger picture.

I was interested to learn about Russian life. I did find that using different names for the same character quite confusing and it took me a while to realize that this was this case. Overall enjoyable.

Thank you to netgally for a copy of THE SIN COLLECTOR in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. It was twisty, turny, and mysterious, and kind of fun that it took place in Russia. Its a different setting, and kept it interesting. It kept me up reading late at night. I devoured this book. It took about 10% of the book before I was really invested in it, but once I was, I couldn't put it down. My suspicions proved correct by the end of the book, however, I was never fully confident that I had it right. I enjoyed the characters and look forward to reading more as they come out!

Fast paced thrill-ride...LOVED it!

Thank you so much to Netgalley for sending me an ARC copy of The Sin Collector by Daria Desombre in exchange for an honest review. The sin collector will be published on October 24, 2017 by Amazoncrossing.

Andrey is a detective
Masha is his intern

Masha and Andrey discover a strange pattern in recent killings. They call upon old officer friends to help them find the killer.

Masha has loved murder and serial killers since she was introduced when she was young. Masha finally gets her dream job but being an intern to a rude detective Andrey was less then satisfactory. Andreys first assignment for for Masha is so go through all the old murder cases from the past 2 years. Masha thinks this is just busy work and that her new supervisor hates her. But while going through case files she starts to create theories and detects patterns in the cases that might be relevant to the current case.

The first chapters drew me in instantly with its detailed writing and descriptive character traits. But it slowed down, the details and information became too much. I wanted the mystery and the murder but I got conversations, analysis, and arguments.
I enjoyed Andrey and Mashas perspectives but all of the other perspectives were less enjoyable. The story didnt really pick up until the end, but once it picked up it was really good. I enjoyed the case and the mystery, even though i almost guessed the killer ahead of time it was still a good mystery.

3 stars

Captain Andrey Yakolev is a detective with the Central Directorate. Maria “Masha” Karavay is a brilliant law student who lands an internship and is “partnered” with the stand-offish Andrey. Andrey gives her some busy work compiling statistics and sets off to investigate his own cases.

When Masha discovers a strange pattern in some killings, she asks her old friend Innokenty for help. After consulting with a former professor of Kenty’s, Masha decides to present her findings to the police higher ups. But she does so without discussing it with Captain Kenty first.

Masha describes her “maniacal missionary” serial killer theory to Kenty. The maniacal missionary is also known as a collector of sins. Their killer is very smart and seems to know how police investigations work. He is very cruel and driven by his affinity for medieval torture and murders.

Andrey becomes drawn to Masha. Her theories begin to make sense to him and he starts to take a closer look at everything. When people connected to Masha start getting killed, Andrey and Masha step up their investigation. It all comes together for the two investigators and they are on a chase to capture the killer.

The killer came as a surprise to me.

This book is fairly well written and the plotting is good. I’m just not sure about this book. I liked it and I didn’t. It starts out slowly and doesn’t really pick up until the book is almost ended. I didn’t care much for the characters, they seemed flat and worn out. I don’t believe I’ll be waiting with bated breath for the next novel of Daria Desombre’s to come out.

I want to thank NetGalley and AmazonCrossing for forwarding to me a copy of this book to read.

The translations in this book make the writing feel clunky. Some characters titles are not translated and used instead of names, making it impossible to know who the character is.

331 pages
4/5 stars
Summary:
The Sin Collector is a dark novel that follows the story of a girl, Masha, as she follows in her father's footsteps. She is obsessed with serial killers and has made it her thesis. Due to connections she has with a family friend she begins to work with a detective, Andrey, and stumbles upon the case he is working that seems to fit her own thesis she has been working on.

Now onto the review:

When first reading the novel, I did find it confusing that it switched between three different perspectives. First Vera, then Masha, and then Andrey. In the beginning I didn't feel much of a connection between any of them because of how fast they were changing.
I did find myself engaged in the story, wondering who the murderer was and wanting to see if Andrey and Masha would get along. 

I really found this book to be fantastic. I will definitely be picking it up as a gift for a reader who I know loves mystery.

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