The Lost Soldiers
Published on 9. April 2026
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-1-5294-4769-9 (ISBN)
Description
"Ukraine's greatest living writer" The Times
"Andrey Kurkov is often called Ukraine's greatest living writer, and it is a gift for crime fiction fans that he writes in this genre" New York Times
Fresh from a case that has shattered his belief in the regime he works for, Samson Kolechko is confronted with a mystery that borders on the impossible.
A troop of Red Army soldiers has disappeared without a trace while visiting the Halytska bathhouse, their abandoned boots and uniforms the only proof that they ever existed.
Faced with such a fantastical conundrum, Samson must resort to a fantastical investigation method: stitching his operative severed ear into a bathhouse worker's jacket, he is able to eavesdrop on his every move. But he discovers far more than he bargained for, and matters are further complicated by the human remains found in the stoves and the presence of a sinister religious cult in the city.
With his quick-witted new wife Nadezhda at his side, Samson must not only solve the case but navigate the political turmoil that still grips Kyiv as civil war looms and trust between neighbours and comrades is eroded day by day. In the third of his Kyiv Mysteries, Andrey Kurkov, Ukraine's greatest living novelist, vividly depicts a city filled with political turbulence and eccentric characters - and draws ominous parallels with the present day.
Translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk
"Andrey Kurkov is often called Ukraine's greatest living writer, and it is a gift for crime fiction fans that he writes in this genre" New York Times
Fresh from a case that has shattered his belief in the regime he works for, Samson Kolechko is confronted with a mystery that borders on the impossible.
A troop of Red Army soldiers has disappeared without a trace while visiting the Halytska bathhouse, their abandoned boots and uniforms the only proof that they ever existed.
Faced with such a fantastical conundrum, Samson must resort to a fantastical investigation method: stitching his operative severed ear into a bathhouse worker's jacket, he is able to eavesdrop on his every move. But he discovers far more than he bargained for, and matters are further complicated by the human remains found in the stoves and the presence of a sinister religious cult in the city.
With his quick-witted new wife Nadezhda at his side, Samson must not only solve the case but navigate the political turmoil that still grips Kyiv as civil war looms and trust between neighbours and comrades is eroded day by day. In the third of his Kyiv Mysteries, Andrey Kurkov, Ukraine's greatest living novelist, vividly depicts a city filled with political turbulence and eccentric characters - and draws ominous parallels with the present day.
Translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk
Reviews / Votes
The Lost Soldiers is not a conventional crime novel. Magic realist elements are introduced as Samson sews his ear, severed in an earlier adventure, into a suspect's greatcoat, enabling him to listen in on conversations when he is not present. Eccentric characters fill its pages. However, it is a very engaging work of fiction, told with wit and imagination by a man often described as Ukraine's greatest living writer. * Sunday Times * Kurkov vividly depicts a city filled with political turbulence - and draws ominous parallels with present day * The iPaper *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Quercus Publishing
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
N/A
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
520 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5294-4769-9 (9781529447699)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Persons
Born near Leningrad in 1961, Andrey Kurkov was a journalist, prison warder, cameraman and screenplay-writer before he became well known as a novelist. He received "hundreds of rejections" and was a pioneer of self-publishing, selling more than 75,000 copies of his books in a single year. His novel Death and the Penguin became an international bestseller, translated into more than thirty languages. As well as writing fiction for adults and children, he has become known as a commentator and journalist on Ukraine for the international media. His work of reportage, Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev was followed by the novels The Bickford Fuse, Grey Bees, and Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv (longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023), as well as his non-fiction work Diary of an Invasion (2022).