The Silver Bone cover art

The Silver Bone

The Kyiv Mysteries, Book 1

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The Silver Bone

By: Andrey Kurkov, Boris Dralyuk - translator
Narrated by: Bart Stanislawek
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About this listen

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024

The first in a series of historical mysteries set amid the chaos of the Russian Revolution. By the author of Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees

Kyiv, 1919. The Soviets control the city, but White armies menace them from the West. No man trusts his neighbour and any spark of resistance may ignite into open rebellion.

When Samson Kolechko's father is murdered, his last act is to save his son from a falling Cossack sabre. Deprived of his right ear instead of his head, Samson is left an orphan, with only his father's collection of abacuses for company.

Until, that is, his flat is requisitioned by two Red Army soldiers, whose secret plans Samson is somehow able to overhear with uncanny clarity. Eager to thwart them, he stumbles into a world of murder and intrigue that will either be the making of him - or finish what the Cossack started.

Translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk

©2024 Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich (P)2024 Quercus Editions Limited Amateur Sleuths Crime Fiction Dark Humour Fiction Historical International Mystery & Crime Literature & Fiction Mystery Crime Russia Detective Soviet Union Red Army

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All stars
Most relevant
To be honest this isn’t my genre and I should have dnfd but hoped I would warm to it. I loved grey bees

Not keen on the narration

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I found the historical context interesting but the narrative performance in general and the pronunciation of Ukrainian/Russian words absolutely dreadful. The reader completely destroyed the inherent poetry of the original.

Interesting historically but dreadful narration

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Gripping drama with a hint of the surreal set in post WW1 Ukraine. A terrific story by modern Ukraine’s leading novelist

Gripping drama

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I liked the slightly mad story of the engineer turned police who solves crime with the aid of his excised ear but the narrator

Good story but narrator not for me

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The every day detail set in the wide historical context of the revolution. Banality turned into art. I disliked the childish reading and monotonous intonation

War and upheaval through the eyes of everyday folk

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