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The Twelfth Department
(2013)(The third book in the Captain Alexei Dimitrevich Korolev series)
A novel by William Ryan
2013 CWA Historical Dagger (shortlist)
Moscow, 1937. Captain Korolev, a police investigator, is enjoying a long-overdue visit from his young son Yuri when an eminent scientist is shot dead within sight of the Kremlin and Korolev is ordered to find the killer.
It soon emerges that the victim, a man who it appears would stop at nothing to fulfil his ambitions, was engaged in research of great interest to those at the very top ranks of Soviet power. When another scientist is brutally murdered, and evidence of the professors’ dark experiments is hastily removed, Korolev begins to realise that, along with having a difficult case to solve, he’s caught in a dangerous battle between two warring factions of the NKVD. And then his son Yuri goes missing . . .
A desperate race against time, set against a city gripped by Stalin’s Great Terror and teeming with spies, street children and Thieves.While the police work will keep readers engaged, the series’ chief strength comes from Ryan’s skilful evocation of everyday life under Stalin.
Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)
Ryan’s latest has a fine set of characters, puzzling murders, interesting police work, and a strong sense of the terror that pervaded Stalin’s Russia. But it is his eye for period detail (e.g., scheming apparatchiks who denounce a neighbor simply to move into a larger apartment) that makes this one special.
Booklist (Starred Review)
Once again, the balance of pungent period detail and increasingly tense plotting are handled with total authority and Korolev remains one of the most persuasively conflicted characters in crime fiction.
The Daily Express
Ryan’s tense, tightly plotted whodunnits feel gloriously plausible, a function of the intimate link he forges between his readers and his characters, never mind that those characters are living through extraordinary times.
Guardian Crime Novel of the Year
Set in Moscow in the 1930s, The Twelfth Department is the third outing for William Ryan’s increasingly impressive Captain Korolev series.
The Irish Times
Ryan … employs imagination and empathy as well as meticulous research; we don’t just see the peeling religious frescoes on security office walls, we feel Korolev’s astonishment at their survival.
Mail and Guardian (South Africa)
As richly satisfying as its two predecessors. Ryan’s achievement is to make his characters and their milieu so tangibly immediate that you feel you’re actually in their presence ... you really do have the sensation of being on that particular street or in that particular apartment block or municipal building alongside Korolev, his tenacious sidekick Slivka or any of the other vividly realised characters who inhabit the book.
John Boland, Irish Independent
Fans of historical mysteries will definitely want to read the tremendously researched The Twelfth Department. When I read one of William Ryan’s Alexei Korolev mysteries, I feel that I have been transported back in time.
Gumshoe Review
The characterisation is simply excellent. Korolev is a conflicted and complex character whose personal story intertwines with the twisted and turning investigative narrative while the other characters, such as the Moscow mob boss, Count Kolya, are all energised and smoothly drawn.
Historical Novel Society Reviews
A truly magnificent book: addictive, interesting, well-written and full of interesting characters. Captain Korolev is helping Ryan establish himself as a first rate author of historical crime fiction. I am definitely a fan of this series and already desperate to read the next one.
Eurocrime
Genre: Historical Mystery
It soon emerges that the victim, a man who it appears would stop at nothing to fulfil his ambitions, was engaged in research of great interest to those at the very top ranks of Soviet power. When another scientist is brutally murdered, and evidence of the professors’ dark experiments is hastily removed, Korolev begins to realise that, along with having a difficult case to solve, he’s caught in a dangerous battle between two warring factions of the NKVD. And then his son Yuri goes missing . . .
A desperate race against time, set against a city gripped by Stalin’s Great Terror and teeming with spies, street children and Thieves.While the police work will keep readers engaged, the series’ chief strength comes from Ryan’s skilful evocation of everyday life under Stalin.
Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)
Ryan’s latest has a fine set of characters, puzzling murders, interesting police work, and a strong sense of the terror that pervaded Stalin’s Russia. But it is his eye for period detail (e.g., scheming apparatchiks who denounce a neighbor simply to move into a larger apartment) that makes this one special.
Booklist (Starred Review)
Once again, the balance of pungent period detail and increasingly tense plotting are handled with total authority and Korolev remains one of the most persuasively conflicted characters in crime fiction.
The Daily Express
Ryan’s tense, tightly plotted whodunnits feel gloriously plausible, a function of the intimate link he forges between his readers and his characters, never mind that those characters are living through extraordinary times.
Guardian Crime Novel of the Year
Set in Moscow in the 1930s, The Twelfth Department is the third outing for William Ryan’s increasingly impressive Captain Korolev series.
The Irish Times
Ryan … employs imagination and empathy as well as meticulous research; we don’t just see the peeling religious frescoes on security office walls, we feel Korolev’s astonishment at their survival.
Mail and Guardian (South Africa)
As richly satisfying as its two predecessors. Ryan’s achievement is to make his characters and their milieu so tangibly immediate that you feel you’re actually in their presence ... you really do have the sensation of being on that particular street or in that particular apartment block or municipal building alongside Korolev, his tenacious sidekick Slivka or any of the other vividly realised characters who inhabit the book.
John Boland, Irish Independent
Fans of historical mysteries will definitely want to read the tremendously researched The Twelfth Department. When I read one of William Ryan’s Alexei Korolev mysteries, I feel that I have been transported back in time.
Gumshoe Review
The characterisation is simply excellent. Korolev is a conflicted and complex character whose personal story intertwines with the twisted and turning investigative narrative while the other characters, such as the Moscow mob boss, Count Kolya, are all energised and smoothly drawn.
Historical Novel Society Reviews
A truly magnificent book: addictive, interesting, well-written and full of interesting characters. Captain Korolev is helping Ryan establish himself as a first rate author of historical crime fiction. I am definitely a fan of this series and already desperate to read the next one.
Eurocrime
Genre: Historical Mystery
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