The latest addition to my website is Andrey Kurkov‘s Сердце не мясо (Stolen Heart). The novel is set in Kyiv in the early 1920s and follows the story of a young police investigator, Samson Kolechko. He and his colleague, a former priest, are given the task of investigating the private selling of meat, which neither they nor the suspects knew was a crime. Tracking down the suspects takes a long time, particularly as their hearts are not in it and they get frequently sidetracked by other issues, such as the kidnapping of Samson’s girlfriend by railway workers, a spate of petty thefts in their office and a major tram accident and the like. Kurkov tells an excellent story, mocks the Soviet system, gives us an excellent portrait of Kyiv a hundred years ago and shows considerable affection for the ordinary people of Kyiv