Andrey Kurkov: The Case of the General's Thumb

Reviewed by FEDERICO MONSALVE

Upon seeing the corpse of a thumbless, high-ranking official tied to a Coca-Cola blimp, Lieutenant Viktor Slutsky closed his laptop — a game of cards still unfinished — got in his car, and drove almost stoically to investigate.

The ensuing probe drags on for weeks, two continents and several death threats.

At the same time a KGB officer, Nik Tsensky, is on a secret mission full of the old standards from Cold War espionage.

His quest is full of phone-booth conversations, briefcases passed from hand to hand, false passports, orders coming from unknown sources and characters who never know for certain who they are working for.

Never mind the good guy/bad guy dichotomy — Nik and Viktor are meekly following orders from quiet unknowns. "In their work ... illogicality served to camouflage either idiocy or cool calculation, and of the two, the latter seemed the more likely."

Their orders get increasingly obscure and nonsensical. Nik is told over the phone to "buy four kilos or so of frozen fish. This you chuck over the wall when you get there, then come straight back."

Kurkov retains the French influences he subscribed to in his earlier titles. The woes of a lonesome obituary and short story writer from Death and the Penguin are revisited in the main characters who are both as unhappy with their lot as they are resigned to it.

The absurd tinges of a depressed urbanite penguin going to counselling sessions from his first book return in the shape of Nadia, an equally silent and co-dependant tortoise.

Yet regardless of the almost formulaic Cold War espionage and the philosophical ammunition of the old French literati, Kurkov manages to be innovative and entertaining while keeping his target on larger issues. This is dark satire at its best.

The book's non-sequiturs are biting, subtle and bordering on a completely rational absurdity.

Kurkov throws a side glance at the desperate and disorganised ways the former Soviet Union is using to adapt to a voracious style of capitalism: "It's all money, money, money, today. Ideology was out." The detective style prevents him from taking the whole thing too seriously.

The Case of the General's Thumb is dark, cinematic Russia: sardonic, slightly morose and delightfully deadpan.

* Random House, $29.95