Edward Topol

It’s obviously a risk to read a random novel just because a friend picked it up in a charity shop and said, “This one has a main character with your name!” I like trying out random books, as it keeps my shelves interesting. That said, I would not have read ‘Red Gas’ had I known there would be so much rape in it. An important spoiler to warn any potential readers: the main character Anna is brutally and graphically gang-raped just over half way through. I seriously considered giving show more up on the book at that point. However, I was interested in the setting (early 1980s Siberia) and figured it couldn’t get any worse than that scene. It didn’t, but it didn’t get much better either. I assume the (male) author thought men raping women made a clever allegory for Soviet oppression of the native Siberian people. It’s barely allegorical, in fact, as the rapes literalise political power. However that doesn’t make them any less horrible to read about, nor does it justify describing them in lurid detail. Further warning: rape of pre-teen girls is a theme and one character repeatedly justifies it in disgusting style, citing [b:Lolita|7604|Lolita|Vladimir Nabokov|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1377756377s/7604.jpg|1268631] of course. Misogyny towards Anna is background noise throughout the book and she only speaks to one other woman throughout (while torturing her, because she enabled Anna's rape - yes, you read that correctly). You can tell Anna was written by a man because she refers so often to her ‘figure’. While investigating brutal murders, most women wouldn’t spend so much time contemplating how hot their body is. Isn't it odd that male characters never seem to do this while trying to solve crimes?

Anyway, much like [b:The Curious Eat Themselves|914418|The Curious Eat Themselves (Cecil Younger, #2)|John Straley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1333580300s/914418.jpg|1223740], this book has a very interesting setting but I disliked the way it was used. The insight into Soviet politics was intriguing and felt plausible, although I don’t know enough to say that it is. I did appreciate the rapid escalation from murder mystery to political drama. The depiction of life inside the Arctic Circle was vivid and involving, likewise the local inter-bureaucratic conflicts. It amused me that the KGB were widely referred to as ‘the Gee Bees’. I wanted to like Anna, but she was so clearly a sex object written by a man that she just depressed me. Although the plot was tense, the denouement made me grind my teeth. The perpetrator of the murders is uncovered, as is his motivation: the murdered men raped his twelve year old sister to death. He dies while spectacularly blowing up a gasworks, which was quite satisfying. What I bitterly resented was Anna’s ultimate role: to save the remaining child rapist from being murdered. At the end, this paedophile rapist has made millions from the gas pipeline, faced zero punishment, and is totally unrepentant. We are given no insight into whether Anna feels conflicted about this. If it had been up to me, she would have murdered the bastard herself.

In short, what could have been a serviceable thriller providing insight into late Soviet politics turned into a nightmare of rape and misogyny. Why the fuck do male writers do this? If a female writer has ever spiced up their novel by having a man get brutally raped, I haven't encountered it yet. I have come across the reverse repeatedly this year alone. It’s enraging and exhausting. show less

In 1982, Moscow city prosecutor Igor Shamrayev is urgently summoned from a vacation resort by Brezhnev to investigate the suspicious suicide of the Premier’s brother-in-law Semyon Tsvigun. With some hidden clues, sharp wit, and a little help from his friends, Shamrayev clashes with the massive bulwark of Soviet bureaucracy, treading ever closer to the ominous truth. The trail of clues leads to new friends, old foes, blind coincidence, harrowing danger, KGB perils, sacrifice, and the dark show more secrets of the Kremlin’s political clockwork.
This murder mystery starts out with all the trappings of a Holmes or Poirot caper, but quickly departs from the norm of mystery novels. The authors barrage the reader with a vast array of names, faces, and facts that diverts even the most astute mind from the truth. Translated from Russian to English, it gives an interesting perspective of life in the bygone USSR; the disadvantage of this is that all the paperwork of the Soviet era come with it. Telegrams, letters, official reports, dictations, tape recordings, and other documents make up a large segment of the novel. Most of the more exciting parts of the storyline are only vicariously recounted through radio, newsprint, or cellophane. Between the Muscovite nomenclature, unfamiliar setting, and omnipresent paper trail, Red Square is a labyrinth to read, but the storyline more than makes up for it. Fans of plot twists will be rewarded by the contorted story, which jumps helter-skelter like a rabbit through the woods. The authors put a human touch to their characters, and to the impassive Soviet nation. Ellery Queen had it easy; he never had to cross swords with the KGB! Interesting side note: the novel throws the name Gorbachev around like it means nothing, which for 1983 didn’t.
VERDICT: 7

(written February 2002) show less

An excellent Soviet time thriller, the just pre-Gorbachev era. The author, being a reporter in those days, has accumulated a wealth of information on the working details of the Soviet regime but couldn't publish such revealing truths at that time, only later, having made it into a novel... This book is about the atrocities in the northern region of the country - the things that were done to the native population there in the name of and for the sake of the famous and extremely productive gas show more line. (I read this book in its original language, Russian). show less

I read this one several years ago at the height of my craze for Soviet-based thrillers and it pretty much stood the test of time. It's a complex book that leaps between several plot strands, personalities and situations. As another reviewer says, try to get a copy with the lis of characters at the beginning.

Early-80s Moscow is brilliantly described and there is a real atmosphere of fear and paranoia. While not as good as Gorky Park it's still worth a read.