Moscow, 1934.
Construction is well under way for a glittering new subway system in the Russian capital. When completed, it will be the envy of the world. However, to build the future, the authorities must dig up the past. Untold treasures - and dark secrets - lie deep underground.
Anton Belkin is an Investigator at the Procuracy, a sensitive job at a dangerous moment on the road to the Show Trials. He is also someone who needs to keep his head down. His artist father was once the darling of the revolutionary avant-garde, a painter whose work could inspire devotion and great sacrifice. Now older and more cynical, he is one careless word away from disgrace and Stalin's Gulag.
Then Anton is dragged into a murder case by his former lover, Vika, who has become a powerful member of the secret police. A prominent archaeologist, working alongside the subway dig, has been killed in a deserted mansion. Accused is a young boy, a nobody. Though Anton does not want to get involved in any way, Vika browbeats him into paying a visit to the site. What he finds there is puzzling and makes him feel for the boy. While Vika tracks his every move, he is also forced to reconsider their shared history and the bonds that still bind him to her.
All reason tells him that he should just leave the boy to rot in gaol. The revolution has already claimed plenty of other innocents. As he digs deeper though, something about the mystery compels Anton to find the truth.
Something bigger is at work here. Something that links a thousand-year-old treasure and a vicious internecine fight for power in the young Soviet state. Anton must navigate his way through and ultimately keep himself and his family safe.
Merridale's book is a sweeping novel of life, death and politics set in a society on the brink of the first of Stalin's great purges. Somewhere between Child 44, Gorky Park and The Holy Thief, it is a novel of special power.
