Dead Meat - Hardcover

Kerr, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0892965622 ISBN 13: 9780892965625

Publisher: Mysterious Pr, 1994

Synopsis

One of the most talked about writers in England today, chosen by the literary magazine Granta as one of the "Best of Young British Novelists" for the 1990s, Philip Kerr in his fifth novel explores the twilight landscape of St. Petersburg and the haunted, driven souls who inhabit it.
In contemporary Russia the only paint is green, toilet paper costs a week's pension, and dead lightbulbs are a precious commodity. This is the world inhabited by a nameless, cuckolded Moscow investigator, a lawyer by training, who is sent to St. Petersburg to seek out possible corruption in the Central Investigating Board.
The man from Moscow finds himself teamed up with a gruff, seemingly honest inspector named Grushko in the investigation of the murder of a famous journalist. To the St. Petersburg cops, and in particular the single-minded Grushko, the crime is obviously the work of the Russian Mafia, a combative and bloodthirsty league of Georgian, Azerbaijani, Ukrainian, and Chechen criminals who deal in everything from fake Rolexes to stolen meat. ("We'll never defeat the Mafia," one policeman says. "It's the one thing in this country that actually works.")
Then hoodlums suddenly start dying and Grushko and his shadow from Moscow must surmount their own doubts about each other to solve a crime that goes well beyond Milyukin's murder.
Set against the sad, beautiful backdrop of a once grand city now populated by an extraordinary cast of cops, hard-currency whores, materialistic yuppies, pimps, and "made men," Dead Meat is a superb, hard-edged suspense thriller. And with its echoes of Dostoyevsky, it is also an unforgettable literary journey through the strange and blood-soaked landscape where everyone is guilty of something, and punishment comes in many forms.

About this title

From the Publisher

A tough, smart cop must use all her powers of intuition, to track the sociopath who wants to draw her into a chilling dialogue about the nature of life itself.

From the Inside Flap

EVERYONE IS GUILTY OF SOMETHING... In comtemporary Russia the old ghosts have been laid to rest, but the stench of corruption is just as strong as ever. Now a top-level Moscow investigator, dispatched to St. Petersburg, is about to discover just how deep the decadence runs--in both the corridors of power and the labyrinth of the human heart. The man from Moscow has been teamed up with Grushko, a palm-reading local detective with Elvis Presley hair. Together they embark on a investigation into the brutal murder of a famous and controversial journalist. To Grushko, an expert in the ruthlessness of the rising Russian Mafia, the killing has all the earmarks of a professional hit. But in the new Russia appearances have almost as little value as the new ruble. Soon the focus of the investigation will fall on the journalist's widow, a pinup beauty whom one detective will find impossible to trust...the other to resist

Edition details

• Publisher: Mysterious Pr
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0892965622
• ISBN 13: 9780892965625
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 239