Translated by Boris Dralyuk
HarperVia
Published May 13, 2025
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
Samson Kolechko has fallen into a job as an investigator in Bolshevik Kyiv during the unsettled time after World War I. A Chekist (a member of a brutal secret police organization) has enlisted him and his colleague Kholodny, a former priest, to investigate an apparent homicide. Someone has reported blood seeping under the door of a shed. It turns out to be pig’s blood – but though it isn’t a homicide, Samson and Kholodny must investigate the illegal slaughter and sale of meat in violation of a new law that says all meat must go to the newly established ExProFooCom, the Extraordinary Provincial Food Committee, which Samson had never heard of. They arrest Citizen Briskin, who sold the pig that was slaughtered, and must find and interview everyone who bought meat from him.