This superb thriller, by an Irish author, is set in Moscow in 1936, a hungry, fearful place. The Revolution is in full swing. Stalin reigns supreme. The secret police stalk the streets and offices and homes and informers whisper in their ears and every now and then the statue of a Russian hero is taken down and his picture removed and he is never heard from again. The populace walk on eggshells, but the real Terror is yet to come. The churches are deconsecrated and religion is a crime, but Russia’s long, devout history does not die easily.

After the discovery of the horribly mutilated body of a women displayed on the altar of a church,Captain Alexei Dimitrevich Korolev of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Moscow Militia, investigates. The discovery that the body is that of an American citizen is a cause for grave concern and draws unwelcome attention from his superiors and from the NKVD. More bodies are discovered, and Korolev follows a trail that takes him to the lowest depths of the Moscow underworld and the highest reaches of his own organisation.

Gripping and atmospheric, this debut thriller threatens to charge off into serial-killer-meets-DaVinci Code territory, with its horrible murders and historical artifacts, but in fact Ryan keeps the story firmly grounded, so much so that one of the most memorable sections of the book is a trip to a Spartak Moscow soccer match, depicting the crush and excitement and the hurly-burly with an impressive eye for detail. Korolev is an engaging character, strong, decent, secretly religious, determinedly optimistic about Russia’s communist future.

This is the first volume of a series that promises to be one of the most interesting forays into historical crime fiction in recent years.