"Yakovleva pick[s] up the torch from Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series”. — The New York Times

“A superb read, with some unexpected turns right at the end."  — Crime Book of the Month, The Critic

"Fascinating reading. . . This series has legs!" — Publishers Weekly

On the eve of Soviet purges, Detective Zaitsev returns to solve the murder of a Red Army horseman — the second installment in the ultimate noir detective series

Perfect for fans of thrilling historical crime fiction, Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels, and Lara Prescott's The Secrets We Kept

As the Red Terror gathers pace, a horseman and horse mysteriously collapse in the middle of a race in Leningrad. Weary Detective Zaitsev, still raw from his last brush with the Party, is dispatched to the Soviet state cavalry school in Novocherkassk, southern Russia, to investigate. As he witnesses the horror of the Holodomor, and the impact of Soviet collectivisation, he struggles to penetrate the murky, secretive world of the cavalry school.

Why has this particular murder attracted so much attention from Soviet officials? Zaitsev needs to answer this question and solve the case before the increasingly paranoid authorities turn their attention towards him...

Don’t miss the second installment in the atmospheric and relentlessly dark detective series set in Stalinist Russia, where corruption, informers, and purges take paranoia to the next level.