The Bloody Meadow

Korolev nodded, thinking of the dead girl, and wondering whether, these days, it was such a good thing to be Commissar Ezhov's friend . . .

Russia, 1937. In Moscow, Stalin's purges are reaching their darkest hour.

Meanwhile Korolev, a police investigator, must travel to the bleak, battle-scarred Ukraine - scene of some of Stalin's bloodiest crimes - to look into the mysterious death of a young woman. The victim, a beautiful film production assistant, had made both powerful friends and terrible enemies . . .

'The Holy Thief, set in Stalin's Russia, was one of last year's most impressive crime fiction debuts. The Bloody Meadow, William Ryan's follow-up, does not disappoint . . . Ryan has obviously done much research into that sinister period of Russian history and manages to convey its claustrophobic atmosphere brilliantly' Marcel Berlins, The Times