Inspector Pekkala

The first in a gripping new series of detective novels set at the birth of Stalin’s Russia. It is the time of the Great Terror. Inspector Pekkala – known as the Emerald Eye – was the most famous detective in all Russia. He was the favourite of the Tsar. Now he is the prisoner of the men he once hunted. Like millions of others, he has been sent to the gulags in Siberia and, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, he is as good as dead....

Shortly after midnight on July 17, 1918, the imprisoned family of Tsar Nicholas Romanov was awakened and led down to the basement of the Ipatiev house. There they were summarily executed. A decade later, one man lives in purgatory, banished to a forest on the outskirts of humanity. Pekkala was once the most trusted secret agent of the Romanovs, the right-hand man of the Tsar himself. Now he is Prisoner 4745-P. But the state needs Pekkala one last time.

Pekkala: He was the Romanovs’ most trusted investigator. Now he’s Stalin’s greatest fear. He operates in the shadows of one of history’s most notorious regimes. He seeks the truth in a nation where finding it can mean death - or worse. His name his Inspector Pekkala, and this time he’s taking on a case with implications far deadlier than anything he can imagine: A shattering revelation that was never meant to be unearthed. Its official name is T-34, and this massive and mysterious new weapon is being developed in total secrecy in the Russian countryside.

The sequel to Eye of the Red Tsar. It is 1939. Facing the secret threat of Nazi Germany, Stalin has placed his hopes on the F-34 tank, a 30-ton steel monster known as the 'Red Coffin' to those men who will soon be using it. But the design is not yet complete. And when the weapon's secretive and eccentric architect is found murdered, Stalin sends for Pekkala, his most trusted investigator. However, Pekkala is not the only one whose loyalty is divided....

September 1939: The Second World War has begun. Even as the fighting rages in Poland, Stalin's long-time obsession with the missing treasure of Tsar Nicholas II is rekindled. An informant claims to know the whereabouts of the man entrusted by the Tsar with hiding his gold. As the news of the informant reaches Stalin, however, the man is knifed to death. Stalin summons Pekkala to the Kremlin and orders him to solve the murder. To accomplish his mission, he must return to Borodok, the notorious Gulag where he himself spent many years as a prisoner.

As Hitler's forces smash into Soviet territory, a lone German scout plane is forced down. Contained in a briefcase within is a seemingly inconsequential painting of a red moth. Military Intelligence dismisses the picture as insignificant, but Stalin suspects a German plot. He summons his old adversary, Inspector Pekkala - the Finn who was Tsar Nicholas II's personal detective - to discover the real significance of this strange cargo. As the storm gathers, Pekkala and his assistant from the Bureau of Special Operations find themselves on the track of the most formidable art thieves in history.

A soldier returns from the front line of battle to report that Pekkala's charred body has been found at the site of an ambush. But Stalin refuses to believe that the indomitable Pekkala is dead. On Stalin's orders, Pekkala's assistant, Kirov, travels deep into the forests of Western Russia, following a trail of clues to a wilderness where partisans wage a brutal campaign against the Nazi invaders. Unknown to Kirov, he is being led into a trap.

In the midst of the fighting, two Russian soldiers seek refuge in the crypt of a German church. There, clutched in the hands of a skeleton priest, they find The Shepherd - a priceless icon thought to have been destroyed long ago. When news of its discovery reaches Moscow, Stalin calls upon his most trusted investigator, Inspector Pekkala, once a favorite of the tsar and known to all of Russia as The Emerald Eye.

April 1945. East of Berlin the Red Army stands poised to unleash its final assault upon the ruined capital of Hitler's Thousand-Year Reich. To the north, at a lonely outpost near the Baltic Sea, German scientists perfect a guidance system for the mighty V2 rocket, which has already caused massive damage to the cities of London and Antwerp. This device, known only by the codename Diamondstream, will allow the rocket to arrive at its target with pinpoint accuracy.