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The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense
The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense Author:Otto Penzler (Editor) The first anthology ever devoted entirely to Russian crime fiction. — From Booklist : "Penzler, who knows crime fiction like few others, has selected 19 short stories or book chapters that he believes represent the best of Russian crime. Many of Russia’s greatest writers are showcased, including Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Che... more »khov, Pushkin, Gogol, Gorky, and Nabokov. Curiously, however, there’s little crime in these stories, and few police, private eyes, or amateur sleuths. Penzler explains why in a brief but informative opening essay: “the detective story cannot flourish in a non-democratic society.” That said, Penzler gives us Raskolnikov’s brutal murder of an odious moneylender and her half sister from Crime and Punishment. He also offers Militia Inspector Fyodor Aniskin, who has policed the same remote Siberian village for 40 years. Aniskin knows his beat intimately, and in “Genka Paltsev—Son of Dimitri,” he dispenses some unexpected Siberian justice. Some crime aficionados may pass on a crime collection short on crime and heroic defenders of the rule of law, but that would be a mistake. Russia’s grand literary tradition, its genius authors, and its tragic history make Penzler’s collection charming and compelling. "« less