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Rough Beast


by Anthony Olcott
Slowest of the trilogy


This 3rd Duvakin novel (after Murder at the Red October and May Day in Magadan) is set in the time that Russia is making the opening steps of transition to capitalism.

As usual, Duvakin is in over his head. His wife, whom we met in the last novel, has been murdered. Because of her ambitious and acquisitive ways, Duvakin feels a strange mix of sorrow and relief. In a house full of black market goods, she has been killed by thieves unknown.

Just previous to the murder, Duvakin has received orders that he has been reassigned out of Moscow to Kazakhstan. Shortly after he arrives at Kazakhstan, his wife’s daughter (for whom he has both fatherly love and other less than fatherly feelings) appears at his apartment. The middle of the story is somewhat slow and tiresome, but when the stepdaughter arrives the plot really gets underway.

Through the machinations of the various political figures and characters, the author provides an interesting glimpse inside Russian. The country is struggling to come to terms with capitalism, yet still retains much of the corruption and big fish/little fish way of life from the former Soviet Union.

The end was satisfying in that Duvakin finally takes his life into his own hands. While some of the joy of this trilogy is seeing Duvakin buffeted by forces far larger than him, it is time in this series that he comes into his own. And he does.