Sam Eastland: Red Icon, 9780571312290, Faber & Faber, UK

During the Frankfurt book fair a few years ago,  a friend at Faber & Faber gave me their proof copy of a then unknown author, Sam Eastland. I took it home, it sat on my reading pile for a while and I eventually started reading “Eye of the Red Tsar” and became an instant fan.

Ever since reading the first of now 6 books, I make sure I read the latest plot spun by Sam Eastland, always starring Pekkala, the former Emerald Eye to the last Russian Tsar and now the most trusted, incorruptible investigator of Stalin. “Eye of the Red Tsar” introduces him  in an unforgettable story of Russian history, the rise of the Bolshevik revolution, the last days of the Tsar family and everyone in their service, Pekkala’s death sentence to life in one of the most terrible Russian gulags, his miracle survival and his rediscovery by Stalin. 

Six books later, in “Red Icon” it is the year 1944. Two Russian soldiers seek refuge in a German church when their tank catches fire during an enemy attack, finding a dead priest in a coffin clutching one of the most priceless Russian Icons, The Shepard.  Pekkala is called in by Stalin to unravel the secret past of the icon soon discovering a band of self-mutilating radicals to whom the icon is worth dying for.

Sam Eastland always weaves a tight thriller, using fact and fiction leaving the reader with more historical understanding after finishing his novels.  “Red Icon” follows in this track; all books are page-turning thrillers for anyone interested in this brutal part of Russia’s 20^th century history. 

In Germany Droemer Knaur publish the books in translation.