The book transports us to revolutionary Kyiv, where streets are chaotic and you’re never quite sure whether there’ll be food on the table tomorrow, or electricity to help you see…stressful times. Still the locals get by, and if you keep your ear to the ground, you never know just what, or who, might turn up at your doorstep.
Now that you are preped, let’s dive into March 1919 in the Ukrainian city of Kyiv, where the Red Army retakes the streets after some fierce fighting. As always the innocent get caught up in the violence.
One of the unlucky souls, Samson Kolechko witnesses his father being cut down by a Cossack while another sabre blow severs his own ear. Having managed to escape with his life, minus an ear, the young man is forced to take stock of his life, particularly when some rooms in his apartment are requisitioned days later by a couple of soldiers looking for somewhere to stay.
However its not too long before the stars realign, and while visiting a police station to request the return of a desk taken by the new authorities, he’s instead offered a job. After a quick change of clothing and a day at the shooting range, Samson becomes a fully- fledged police officer, tasked with
investigating some of the crimes sweeping the city, and as it happens, one of these hits rather close to home.
You see, there’s more to the soldiers sharing his apartment than meets the eye, and its not too long before our young hero is plunged into a mystery involving stolen goods and and an intriguing medical procendure.
Thus starts THE SILVER BONE, Andrew Kurkov’s first foray into historical fiction and thrillers, with a second and third on the way. The story is enhanced by the revolutionary setting with the Red and White armies taking turns to occupy the city. The book’s focus is less on the soldiers than on the ordinary folk, who are adapting as best as they can to the new reality of food vouchers and a number of different currencies. Once one side takes over, there’s a need to create order as soon as possible, and every regime change means things are done a little differently.
So, bring on the mystery where the catylist for this is a series of thefts, involving some unusual items. There’s some fabric, prepared for clothing that seems of an unusual size and shape, as well as silver, hoards of it, squirreled away while all the gold, equally accessible and available, is ignored.
Every mystery has an elephant in the room, and that is Samson’s ear. Having kept it, hopefully it might somehow be reattached, he comes to realise that there’s something unusual going on.
It turns out that that somehow the ear had remained intact and continues to function, even when its owner is miles away. This proves to be a useful plot device, allowing the young policeman to keep one step ahead of his foes by getting wind of their plans as they are being made.
The author throws another bone in addition to the history and mystery, Samson’s landlady introduced him to Nadezhda,n a young woman who works in in the provincial Bureau of Statistics, and a sedate courtship ensues, with the policeman doing his best to impress her and her parents while exhausting himself pounding the city streets. This involves a hilarious scene when he makes an offer to allow her to stay over once he has ridden his unwanted flatmates.
THE SILVER BONE is a fairly slow-moving story that at times seems as if the author is making it up on the fly. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about the mystery, and if anything, it’s the history that has the appeal. We are engaged by the precarious nature of life in the city. Still Samson makes for an affable protagonist whose readers are rooting for him both in his work and his love life, and of-course, there’s a twist in the tale when a sudden shift in fortunes towards the end of the book, reminds us how fragile the status quo is. The historical timeline suggests that a happily-ever-after is unlikely, but here’s
hoping that Samson manages not to lose any more body parts.
This tale is sn enjoyable read with a promising premise. This is the first in a series of crime mysteries by Ukraine’s most gifted writer that carries a rattling
plot and a torrent of enjoyable absurdities. Then as now, citizens grapple with uncertainty, randomness and nacts of terrible violence. Samson and The Silver Bone is a glorious aural portrait of a city in dangerous flux.
I first discovered Kurkov while googling Soviet literature and sensed his staple sense of humour- dark, wry, arguably slow-might be his biggest asset. He has charm, oodles of it wrapped in historical reference, mystery and humour. He is prolific, and already has 19 novels to his name.
