This riveting story traces the creation of a serial killer and how one man's desire to get his family to America causes him to use this killer as a paid assassin for the Russian Mafia. Can CIA agent Dr. Abigail Soloman convince her country of her discovery?
Much of the story is actually rooted in fact, and this comes through in Musgrave's detached, almost journalistic style of narrative with which his fans will already be familiar. This approach proves highly effective; showing the reader a story rather than telling them. Like his previous works, Russian Wolves is not for lazy-minded reader. Musgrave encourages his readers to think about the subject matter, and his beautifully crafted storyline is developed subtly enough that you are always kept on your toes (or on the edge of your seat, depending on your reading posture). Neither does he pull his punches. Russian Wolves is replete with graphically explicit scenes that chill rather than shock. FLASH! SOON TO BE IN GERMAN TRANSLATION!
Excerpt
Famine (Prologue)
Southern Ukraine, February 1932. The crowd was assembled outside Mayor Petrovsky's house near the Headquarters for the People's Ukrainian Comintern. The village had been without food for six weeks, and the people were now getting desperate. Mrs. Petrovsky was boiling down leather belts, hats, coats and shoes, and then selling the “broth” to villagers for two rubles a bowl. A trapper from the Ural Mountains had, one month earlier, carried in a freshly killed deer on his horse, and he was almost immediately assassinated for “the common good of the town.”
During the raging blizzards of the Ukraine's worst winter ever, the villagers had eaten all of the livestock, pets and other farm animals, and they were now devouring whatever rats and other vermin they could catch inside their cottages. In addition, any “strangers” from outside their community were being assassinated as political enemies, and then they were secretly being cooked and distributed in neatly wrapped, warm bundles by Mrs. Petrovsky for the survival of the starving community.
The four village leaders who were assembled inside Mayor Petrovsky's house knew they had to come up with some fast solutions. The villagers were again angry and shouting for food outside the mayor's house, and the four male members of Stalin's Communist Ukrainian Cell knew that they had to come up with a way to feed the masses, or else they themselves would become victims of this raging community of cannibals standing outside in the snow, drunk on vodka and as hungry as ravenous wolves.
Vladimir Vladiev, 42, was the officer in charge of the national prison compound on the edge of town. Anatoly Lagrosky, 36, was the local postmaster. David Staskov, 28, was the head of the Communist Youth League. Mayor Fedor Petrovsky, 53, a veteran of World War I, was the government‑appointed spokesman for the Marxist/Leninist Council in Moscow.
The men stood around a large, pot‑bellied stove in the middle of the room, rubbing their hands together and stomping their boots to stay warm. Staskov spoke first. He was the youngest and the most frightened. His blonde hair was neatly parted in the middle, and he wore a mink overcoat and cap. David had the largest vocabulary of the group, as he also taught in the secondary school's gymnasium.
“I say we select someone who has already been deemed an Enemy of the People. It is not our prerogative to say who is an enemy and who is not.”
Petrovsky wrapped his freckled arm around the youth's shoulders and gave him a hug. “Nicely phrased, comrade! I couldn't have put it better myself! But who do we know that is an enemy?”
Vladiev cleared his throat. His long beaver coat had the governmental look of regimental tailors. He was the shortest man of the four, and the lowest in status, and he spoke with a stammer. “There's a family named Chikatilo who l... lives near the p... p... prison.”
Lagrosky, a postal inspector and the Stalin government's official censor, was a huge man, almost seven feet tall, and he spoke with authority. “Yes, indeed! Chikatilo was a traitor in the trenches during the war with the Japanese monkeys. He was caught selling maps of our military positions while he was in the Jap prison near Manchuria. I concur with Vladiev. This family is a blight on the people. The oldest son has been caught selling pornographic photos of his sister and younger brother. The whole family refuses to attend local cell meetings.”
“Then it's settled,” said Petrovsky, tossing more sticks into the flaming belly of the stove.
“Let's drink on it,” said Vladiev, and he walked over to a small table near the door. He picked up the leather‑wrapped bottle and took a deep swig, and then he wiped off the spout on his fur coat and passed it to Lagrosky. The postal inspector raised the bottle into the air and shouted, “Nastrovia!”
One by one, each man drank from the bottle and swore his allegiance to the evil code of starvation justice brought about by the famine and the world economic depression.
Professional Reviews
Intense Thriller
The novel is laced with many characters of different depths and emotions. There appears to be no real "good guy" or "bad guy" in the story, but rather a mixed combination of both. Abbey Soloman falls for Pavel Vordia, a new breed of private investigaor in Russia, only to wonder if she herself is being trapped by another kind of wolf. The "villain", Andrei Chikatilo, is the most blood-thirsty, sexually depraved psychopath I have every read about.
This is not a story for the squeamish or light-hearted reader. Russian Wolves is very intense, looking into the twisted mind of a serial killer and the eventual downfall of the cop obsessed with catching him. Graphic details and gory descriptions cause me to warn any reader ahead of time to be prepared. The work is engrossing and very intensive in its glimpse into the seedy world of international spy tactics.
Frighteningly Real
RUSSIAN WOLVES is a frightening tale of transformation from victim to destroyer. Woven around a political tale of corruption and a quest for power, the novel provides rich entertainment. Be prepared, however, for graphic carnage, for serial killers are foul, and so are the necessary descriptive elements. Jim Musgrave's powerful story telling is not to be missed, however, for those fierce of heart and stomach.
Stunning Novel
"Southern Ukraine, 1932. During the raging blizzards of the worst winter ever, the villagers had eaten all of the livestock, pets and other farm animals, and they were now devouring whatever rats and other vermin they could catch inside their cottages. Any 'strangers' from outside their community were being assassinated as political enemies, and then secretly cooked and distributed in neatly wrapped, warm bundles by Mrs. Petrovsky ..."
So begins RUSSIAN WOLVES, an absolutely stunning novel by James Musgrave, author of LUCIFER'S WEDDING and SINS OF DARKNESS. The pathetic reality is that back in '32 they truly were eating one another in Stalin's emaciated Ukraine. Although a work of fiction, Musgrave competently weaves in enough reality to give the book - if you'll excuse the expression - bite.
He expertly uses Andrei Chikatilo (who is to Russia what Jeffery Dahlmer is to the US). A riveting plot has the most monstrous of serial killers plus a Moscow detective plotting to murder the president of the new Russian democracy and an American CIA agent desperately trying to thwart all without getting much help from her own country.
Will Agent Abby Soloman find a way to stop the killers? Ironically, the answer is revealed during a heart-stopping climax in Moscow's famous Bolshoi Ballet Theater's presentation of - what else? - Prekopiev's PETER AND THE WOLF.
All Carson Reno Mystery Series Books are standalone novels. It is not necessary to read them in any particular order.
When a Tennessee Highway Patrolman is mysteriously murdered, the clues are nonexistent. Police have the name of a possible suspect,
