Porfiry Petrovich Novel
2 primary works
Book 1
An atmospheric mystery set in St Petersburg in the winter of 1867 sees detective Porfiry Petrovich taking his first murder case since Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. When two frozen bodies are found in a park, he begins to suspect that the truth may be more complex than others wish him to believe, as his investigations lead him to a shocking discovery which reveals the city's darkest secrets. A Gentle Axe is utterly absorbing and tense from its dramatic opening through to its shocking climax.
Book 2
It's the middle of a hot, dusty St Petersburg summer in the late 1860s. A doctor's wife and son die suddenly and the doctor is arrested, suspected of poisoning. But when further, apparently unconnected, murders occur, Porfiry Petrovich is forced to reassess his assumptions. Delving into the hidden, squalid heart of the city, he is brought face to face with incomprehensible horror and cruelty, in this vivid rendering of a brutal and stifling nineteenth-century St Petersburg.