From Russia With Blood

I mentioned last week that William Ryan’s THE BLOODY MEADOW gets its Irish launch today, at O’Mahony’s Bookshop, 120 O’Connell Street, Limerick, and the mood should be buoyant, to say the least, given the early buzz. To wit:

“THE HOLY THIEF was both bleak and savage … In an interesting change of pace which suggests the author has more than a formulaic series planned, in this second instalment Ryan has produced a film-noir-ish rewrite of the old-fashioned locked-room mystery, complete with creepily gripping, and ultimately gruesome, cops and robbers chase through the great catacombs on which Odessa sits, while Stalin’s man-made terror-famine, which scorched through the Ukraine half a decade before the book opens, is only gestured at, in elliptical speech and ultimately in the characters’ motivations.” - The Spectator

  Tasty. And there’s more:

“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.” - The Times

  All of which is very nice indeed; consider this fan’s appetite well and truly whetted. For more of the same, clickety-click here …