Donald James (1931–2008)

When it was first published back in 1997 this novel painted an intriguing image of what the future might hold for Russia. Set in what then seemed a fairly distant 2015, Russia was emerging from a bleak and bitter civil war between the Nationalist regime and Marxist-Anarchist insurrectionists. The Nationalist regime had emerged triumphant, but the country had been devastated by the war, and the economy had been wrecked.

Police inspector Constantin Vadim had seen out the war in his native Murmansk. His position is, however, somewhat equivocal because his estranged wife Julia had been a general in the defeated Anarchists’ army. Now on the run, she has managed to contact Vadim, and seeks his help for her escape.

Vadim’s oldest friend from school and student days is Roy Rolkin, now a major (but soon to be a colonel) in the Cheka, the ever-present secret police, which in 2015 is just as deeply feared as at any other time in Russia’s history. Vadim knows that Rolkin’s friendship is a very thin, and immensely fragile veneer, that could be eroded by even the merest hint that he has been helping his ex-wife.

Vadim does have one unexpected asset – his close resemblance to Leonid Koba, formerly head of the Cheka and now Vice President, but understood by everyone to be the focus of real power in the nationalist government. Vadim fins himself selected for the role of one of Koba’s doubles, and. After minor cosmetic surgery, finds himself being conveyed around the country to participate in minor ceremonies as the Vice President, leaving the real Koba to concentrate on the work of reconstruction that the country so desperately needs.

To facilitate his participation in this deception, Vadim is transferred to Moscow, and installed as head of the homicide division. This does not prove to be the sinecure that Vadim had envisaged as a serial killer is on the loose. Three women have been killed, with their bodies mutilated, and the assailant has been given the nickname of ‘Monstrum’. Vadim finds himself heading the investigation, and soon learns that there have been far more than three victims. The killings started during the civil war, but evidence of the killings had been covered up under the ensuing mayhem.

Vadim is an enigmatic character. Far from flawless, with a long track record of near alcoholism and womanising, he does retain some vestige of culture and decency. He is appalled by the Monstrum killings, but also by the dreadful conditions in which much of the population of the poorer areas of Moscow are condemned to live. But he is also a pragmatist, and quickly learns when and where to turn a blind eye.

Donald James conjures the atmosphere of a war-torn Russia very effectively, and one can almost feel the bitter cold that pervades every scene. However, while the story is well thought through, and the plot is soundly constructed, the book is far too long, being unnecessarily drawn out. Vadim is reminiscent of Arkady Renko, protagonist of Gorky Park and Martin Cruz Smith’s other crime novels set in Moscow. Although, to be honest, I thought that those books were unnecessarily lengthy, too.… (meer)