Ben CreedBesprekingen

My thanks to the Author publisher's and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review.
Quality research and writing throughout, a totally absorbing mystery gripping from first to last page. Atmospheric clever descriptive, and intelligent storytelling with totally believable mix of fictional and real historical characters. With a genuinely real feel for time and place.
Completely and utterly recommended.

One of the worst of its genre I’ve ever had the misfortune to waste my time reading. Really, an embarrassment. Poorly conceived, dull witted, badly proof-read, unimaginative, unconvincing and littered with cliches.

Set in Leningrad in 1951 this is a well written and researched story, atmospheric descriptive with a real feel for the tension of citizens who at any moment could find themselves arrested, having been informed on by colleagues family friends or complete strangers. Clever entertaining and imaginative with superb characters, as our hero a former violinist with a seemingly glittering future ahead of him, is now a state militia detective tasked with investigating the gruesome find of five dead bodies. A quality engaging mystery. So why only four stars well whilst music plays a significant part of the story, and I am afraid quite a lot of the in depth musical explanations went straight over my head and bored me.
Entertaining read