The Stolen Heart, by Andrey Kurkov

The second novel in Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov’s Kyiv Mysteries series. 

It’s 1919, Ukraine. There is much upheaval in the capital city, Kyiv, as the political fallout from World War I is felt. Most notably, the Russian secret police, or Cheka, wields its arbitrary yet   terrifying power. Employed as a policeman by the Workers’ and Peasants’ Militia, Samson Kolechko has been assigned a peculiar case. He must investigate the slaughter of a pig and the selling of its parts as meat. Apparently, and no one seems to know this, the selling of meat is now deemed illegal. Higher up bureaucrats call it “speculating”, a nefarious capitalist practice. Samson’s investigations lead him into all sorts of strange encounters in Kyiv’s back alleys and underground markets. While these Byzantine inquiries are going on, Samson, who is a young man, is trying to get on with his personal life. He intends to marry his fiancee, Nadezhda, who has troubles of her own working as a census taker. 

Andrey Kurkov is considered one of Ukraine’s finest contemporary writers, and it’s not difficult to see why, going by this second installment of the author’s “Kyiv Mysteries” series. The novel is permeated with a wonderfully earthy tone, full of detailed descriptions of Ukrainian life in 1919. There are many memorable scenes: Red Army soldiers that mysteriously vanish at a sauna, an eccentric atheistic wedding and buffoonish interrogation lessons, where students are told how to blow smoke in a subject's face. The Stolen Heart has a rich vein of humour that runs through it, as we follow the naive Samson’s bungling in his strenuous attempts to keep his superiors happy. But beneath this comic surface there lies the grinding, tectonic plates of state, a bloodthirsty and mindless government bureaucracy inexorably taking its victims. The final scenes of the novel are shocking, where Samson is forced to make a terrible decision. 

It’s hard to imagine you’ll read a better novel this year. A richly absorbing tale of the absurdity and terror that is totalitarian government.  

The Stolen Heart, by Andrey Kurkov. Published by MacLehose Press. $34.99

March 25