Theatrical killing amid reprisals. New book by Yulia Yakovleva

MOSCOW. The publishing house "Eksmo" published a new book by Yulia Yakovleva on the investigation of strange murders at the beginning of the Great Terror era.

The question of why the art critic, columnist for Vogue and "Posters", the author of articles and books about ballet, turns his attention to the Stalin era, seems partly rhetorical. A man who is conscientious, good at writing, who knows the true value of a printed word, inevitably comes to such complex, bitter, requiring utter sincerity topics. He simply cannot allow himself to be silent about the fact that an honest person is not able to ignore. Otherwise, can one be considered a real writer?

Already after the Children of the Raven, the first book of the Leningrad Tales series, it became clear that the author had chosen the vector correctly. What can be said about repression, clotting the narrative in a fantasy that is understandable to children, fairy tale, without departing from the historical truth. The heroes of The Stolen City, the sequel to The Raven’s Children, who survived the tragedy and absurdity of the late 30s, are trying to survive during the Leningrad blockade. Without parents, without help, without food. At a time when even some adults despair and lose their minds, losing their human appearance, turning into looters and cannibals, children need to survive and stay alive.

In the detective novel “Suddenly the Hunter Runs Out” the era of Great Terror is just beginning, although it would be more correct to say that it did not stop after October 1917. The incredible life upheavals of the main character, investigator Vasily Zaitsev are inseparable from the investigation of the group murder on Elagin Island, a strange, confused decorated with deliberate theatricality. The thickening atmosphere of anxious anticipation and tension against the backdrop of an increasingly fast-paced flywheel of repression is an element of suspense, without which it is difficult to imagine a good detective.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru