Ratings2
Average rating4.3
Investigator Vissarion Lom has been summoned to the capital in order to catch a terrorist -- and ordered to report directly to the head of the secret police. A totalitarian state, worn down by an endless war, must be seen to crush home-grown insurgents with an iron fist. But Lom discovers Mirgorod to be more corrupted than he imagined: a murky world of secret police and revolutionaries, cabaret clubs and doomed artists. Lom has been chosen because he is an outsider, not involved in the struggle for power within the party. And because of the sliver of angel stone implanted in his head.
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Excellent and highly original worldbuilding, bizarre and rich a la Mieville imagination, deep, suffocating, dark and very noir atmosphere. Some characters well shaped (Kantor, Vishnik), some not so much, including the main ones (Lom and Maroussia). Unfortunately, the story itself is rather thin and bare, also somewhat disjointed. I will definitely read the rest of the trilogy, hoping that, having liberated himself from the worldbuilding, the author will provide a better storyline.
PS. Because of the cover, I expected it to be an alternate USSR. It was actually an alternate,steampunk, Tsarist Empire.