Man of Bones

Winter 1953. Beneath a pitch-black Leningrad sky, two bodies lie near the towering statue of Lenin outside the Finland Station. 'Nothing sinister, here, just a simple hit and run,' an officer in the MGB secret police assures militia detective Revol Rossel. Now he knows it's murder.

Only recently released from a brutal Siberian labour camp and determined to find his missing sister at last, Rossel wants nothing to do with this new case. But his alcoholic, broken superior officer, Captain Liphukin, seizes upon it as his salvation - a last chance to be a true Soviet hero.

Along with sharp-witted Sergeant Lidia Gerashvili, and Major Nikitin, the interrogator who once cut off Rossel's fingers, Rossel sets off on the trail of a murderer whose crimes surpass those of even the deranged tsar Ivan the Terrible. A trail leading to a dark, hidden episode in Bolshevik history filled with unspeakable horrors.

There is only one eyewitness - Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, whose giant right hand stretches out towards the frozen River Neva. Lenin, Rossel thinks, seems to be pointing at someone. But who?

'PRAISE FOR A TRAITOR'S HEART:

'Enthralling ... The dark story is leavened with sharp dialogue and flashes of dry wit' Financial Times.

'Ben Creed has a genuine gift for conjuring up Stalin's Leningrad in all its beauty and misery' The Times.

'A cleverly constructed thriller' Sunday Times.

'A fantastically tense atmosphere, thickly spread with historical detail, makes this a spine-tingling page-turner'' - The Sun

Ben Creed is the pseudonym for Chris Rickaby and Barney Thompson. Chris found his way into advertising as a copywriter and, after working for various agencies, started his own called Everything Different. Barney is a classically trained musician who studied under the legendary conducting professor Ilya Musin at the St Petersburg Conservatory for two years. He is fluent in Russian and is now an editor.

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