The Body Outside the Kremlin

by James L. May

A suspenseful new murder mystery set in a crumbling monastery–turned–Soviet prison in the early twentieth century.   In a former monastery on an island in the White Sea, now taken over by the Bolsheviks, young mathematician Tolya Bogomolov is serving a three-year sentence, watched over by a skeleton crew of secret policemen. Some prisoners are consigned to forced labor while others sit at comfortable desks. So Tolya has been cultivating an acquaintance with Gennady Antonov that he hopes will lead to a better work assignment—maybe even a little more bread in his ration—especially now, with the brutal winter fast approaching.   Gennady holds a privileged position restoring the monks’ seized collection of icons. But when his body is discovered floating frozen in the bay, Tolya’s connection with him is no longer advantageous—it’s downright dangerous.   At first, the authorities question Tolya. But he’s mystified when they assign him to assist the elderly detective investigating the case. While he’d rather find the real killer than have the murder pinned on him, digging into Gennady’s secrets will turn up mysteries that could turn Tolya into the next victim . . .

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Russia, Book Club

481 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 14, 2020

About the author

James L. May is the author of The Body Outside the Kremlin, published by Delphinium Books. He holds an MFA from Florida International University, along with a BA from Cornell. He grew up in New Jersey, has lived in Miami and New Orleans, and now resides in New York City. His short fiction has appeared in Tigertail, and he has reviewed fiction for The Florida Book Review, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine and New Orleans Review.

Reviews

[Beata · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly good read with solid historical background with reagrd to the period. The mystery around the murder of a prisoner in a Solovki camp in 1926 is supported by the Holmes-Watson style duo who work hard to get to the bottom of the murder. Tolya Bogomolov recalls the events after approximately thirty years, and it might seem a lot has changed, but the Party still holds its grip on the citizens. This secretly written memoir takes us on a tour to the cruellest of place and times.
Apart from the mystery, the descriptions of the Solovieckie Isles, their history and their role during the dawn of the Soviet regime sound well-researched. Besides, the Author gives us an insight into how inhumane the gulags were and into the mentality of a newly-shaped Homo Sovieticus.
The pace of the novel is slow and it allows us to feel the atmosphere and the plot to unravel gradually. It is not an action-packed thriller, but rather a book in which the mystery is just the pretext to present the experience and loneliness.
*Many thanks to James L May, Meryl L. Moss Media Relations, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Hanover Publisher via Netgalley for advanced copy of this book.
This is a darkly disturbing book about events in Solovki Prison Camp, a former monastery on island in the White Sea, set in the 1920's after Lenin's death. Our protagonist, just 20 years old, is Tolya Bogomolov. He leads us through the difficult events he is faced with when he is called away from roll call for questioning about a dead body, the person Gennady Antonov he had become friendly with. Antonov had been working with icons and had certainly caused a problem for some unknown criminal to have been killed brutally. From this start, the powers that ruled paired Tolya with an old man who had been a police inspector in Odessa, Yakov Petrovich. They were to investigate the murder of Antonov.
Of course there is nothing straight forward about this assignment for the two men as at every turn they are faced with triggers that could ignite and lead to their own deaths. The partnership is slow in gaining traction and trust, but Tolya has youth and a very strong stubborn streak on his side. He is needed by Petrovich who struggles to get around with his cane. Initially Petrovich mocks Tolya for his interest in detective fiction but eventually a bond is formed as they need each other for many reasons.
The detail of survival in a Gulag is artfully conveyed in many moving segments of hardship for the common prisoner. The investigation takes Tolya to extremes, including sawing off his little finger and later nearly drowning in attempt to save icons.

[Rich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Historical fiction books are always interesting to read. I knew some of the history of these work camps but I learned a bunch more from reading this book. I will say this author knows his subject matter and that's why this book was able to get two stars. It was a decent story but it was to long. In the first part of the book he hits you over the head with all the different types of KGB spinoffs . The main characters were ok as well as the supporting cast. The story was dry needed more action this book has a lot of dialogue and I mean a lot. It needed more action to help it along. This book bogged down multiple times and the pace was slow. It was just to slow and long. The ending was ok but that also lacked spark. For a first book it was decent but I feel he needs a different editor. In the end if you have a lot of time om your hands and enjoy a very slow paced book then give it a spin.

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 and 1 / 2 stars

Young Tolya Bogomolov is incarcerated by the Bolsheviks in 1926. He is serving a three year sentence on an island in the White Sea in a camp dominated by a former monastery. The “guards” are secret police and it seems everyone is on the take. Some prisoners are assigned to hard labor and some have it a little easier, working in the historical archives or preserving religious icons.

When his friend Genady Antonov, who is one of those restoring the valuable icons, is found floating in the bay, Tolya is considered a suspect. When the former police inspector who is drafted to investigate the death demands that Tolya assist him, he is more or less exonerated.

Together the two set about to solve the murder of Antonov.

I really liked the historical detail in this book. The horrid conditions in the camp and the surrounding terrain was described very well. There was some discussion of the politics of 1926 Russia and the fall of the Czar. What I didn't care for about this book was its slow pace. There was much talking and very little doing. I like my police procedurals to have more action; quicker paced. It was written very well and plotted equally well. The author used language more than adequately. Overall, I thought it was a good story and a very nice first effort for Mr. May.

I want to thank NetGalley and Meryl L. Moss Media Relations for forwarding to me a copy of this good book for me to read, enjoy and review.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story. Fascinating setting and remarkable historical context. A pleasure to read.

[Michael Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

James L. May has written a remarkable debut novel that brings to life one of the worst periods of soviet history. The novel moves slowly, but that merely reflects that everything moved slowly at the Solovetsky prison camp in 1917. If it moved at all. The grinding misery of the gulag, and its human representatives, is the real antagonist of this novel. By his meticulous historical research and his careful reconstruction of the Solovetsky prison era, May has developed a painfully moving story. It is also an intriguing mystery.
The narrator, Tolya, is new to Solovetsky and is looking for a patron who can help him obtain a less brutal work assignment or a little more to eat. He befriends Gennady Antonov who holds a privileged position. But when Antonov's body is discovered floating frozen in the bay, Tolya is called out by a member of the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police who administer the prison. Surprising, this turns to his advantage when he’s assigned to help another prisoner, Yakov Petrovich, investigate the death.
The book is filled with good characters and Petrovich is among the most interesting. A retired policeman who worked for the Tsar’s government, he’s thrilled to be a detective for one more case.
The investigation proceeds slowly—partly because of the constraints of the camp—but the two men make a good team until Tolya falls for a woman prisoner who may have important information. However, just when they seem to be making real progress, the Cheka abruptly cancels their investigation, and immediately after that a group of prisoners is rounded up and shot. Although Tolya and Petrovich are spared, Tolya knows that he has to solve the case at all costs if he’s to survive, and that now he has to do it on his own. Steadily, this well-structured mystery builds to a climax.

[Nick Sanders · Rating 1 out of 5]

A slow starter. A very slow starter. A very, very slow starter. I stopped starting.

[Sue F · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a big fan of historical mysteries, and I am especially happy when they introduce me to a time and place that I’m not very familiar with. So I was glad to get a chance to read an ARC of The Body Outside the Kremlin, which is set in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, on a prison island in the middle of the White Sea. This is a time period that I learned only a little bit about in history class, and I certainly learned nothing about the prison camps of the period, other than that they existed. So I was interested in the book right from the start.

And I was even happier when I started reading the book, and found that I liked the writing style (a lot). I also like my books to have a really good sense of background and setting, and The Body Outside the Kremlin delivered on that too. Granted, the background and setting were pretty bleak and depressing, but somehow the author made the story interesting and engaging anyway. I also enjoyed the plot, which fit really nicely with the setting.

Overall, if you're looking for comparisons - this book struck me sort of as a cross between Eliot Pattison’s Shan Tao Yun series for the prison camp/communist setting and plot, and John Maddox Roberts’s Decius Cecilius Metellus series for the occasional brief flashforwards that add a lot to the story.

I believe this is James L May’s first mystery and I very much hope he writes more. And once again, my thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for the ARC, which I was allowed to read in exchange for my honest review.

[Steve Wilkerson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a very ambitious debut novel, set in a Communist prison camp in the Solovetshy monastery in 1926, but being written years later by the main character. Although May has done his research and has a good feel for the monastery, the sense of place and character development is not quite what one would expect of a Communist prison camp. I'm not convinced that he achieved what he set out to do -- make a commentary on the arbitrariness of life. The book is too long, features two separate stories (not counting the framing story of the writer writing the story and intruding) which need to be stitched together better. The second story is more engaging than the first. The first -- the one which sets up the action of the second -- gets pretty dull before there's a sudden shift to the second story. On the other hand, the novelheld my attention until I completed it.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a quitter. I usually enjoy stories with a Russian theme. Not this time. I tried, I plowed on, I tried again, I slogged on, then I said “No More.” So many cheap literary tricks to try to hold your attention, wait for it, more to come, wait for it, but first you have to follow every ridiculous tangent that is thrown in and it is so very tedious. It was also brutal, depraved, dark and very ugly.

The positives are the research and probable historical accuracy as well as solid writing. Had the story been condensed to the murder(s) the mystery and the resolution it would have been a winner for me. Sadly there was just too much content that added nothing to the story except my loss of interest.

Thank you NetGalley and Meryl L. Moss Media Relations for a copy.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not certain how fair my review is as my copy is not TTS enabled and took me a long time to read in short segments.
The first thing to make clear is that the time period and probabilities have been meticulously researched and incorporated into the plot. The murder investigation was well done and the characters and conditions are clearly depicted. The plot hook in the publisher's blurb is well done, but the pace of progress in the novel was not to my liking. If you want decent historical perspective in a slow paced procedural, you'll love it.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Meryl L. Moss Media Relations via NetGalley.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched and interesting historical fiction about Slovetsky Islands in the 1920s after the Bolsheviks take over and form the USSR. It was the first (pre-gulag) experimental re-educational penal/labor camp and the author really makes you feel what it must have been like to be an inmate- the brutality and cold and starvation, executions,torture, betrayals -trying to survive. The plot revolves around a murder mystery or "detectiv" -a novel within a novel- written thirty years later by a survivor of the camp. Could have been a bit shorter and once the mystery is solved --The End.

[Katharine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. Not only does it give you most of the knowledge to be gained from volume one of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago trilogy, it does so in a much more pleasant read. Set in the first big Russian prison camp on an island in the Arctic Ocean in the twenties, the novel explores the daily regime, the massive mortality rate, the types of people kept there, all while searching for a murderer in the midst of all these prisoners. So much of Russian history and culture is explored - a must read for anyone with an interest in the period.

[Gerald Hoeltge · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first fifty pages or so are slow going as one gets used to the Russian names. (A dramatis personae would have helped.) Once passed that challenge, however, the story is gripping. Set in a frigid island in an early Soviet gulag (mid 1920's), the characters are rich and conflicted. The narrator is the protagonist writing decades later, which means he knows the solution to the mystery and he parses out clues carefully. If you like Alan Furst or Philip Kerr novels of the 1930's and 40's, you'll enjoy this book.

[Bb Hurley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This had the potential to be a really good historical drama.
Pros: interesting local and time period - which more was depth was given to the time period, interesting and well rounded characters
Cons: May writes like he wants to sound Russian, but ends up sounding like an westerner trying to sound Russian, and the long self involved sections on Chekhov and realism-soviet-philosophy were distracting from the slow paced story.

[Claudete Takahashi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very entertaining and interesting book. There's a lot of research and James May took care in being the most trustworthy as possible while mixing history with fiction and the result is breathtaking! I really enjoyed reading The Body Outside the Kremlin and I'm looking forward to reading other titles by this author!
I downloaded a free copy of this book through NetGalley and this is my honest review.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read an early release copy thanks to NetGalley. Many years ago, as an undergraduate student, I majored in Russian history.

The 1920's and beyond were a time of great turmoil but there were few books available to tell the story. This book, while fiction, is well written and paints a very realistic picture of life in the camps.

Highly recommend for anyone who is a student of history.

[Jody · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy from the giveaways contest and cannot have to say that it is now one of my all-time favorites! I was quickly immersed in the story (once I got all the Russian names sorted out) and drawn in by the mystery that was perfectly unraveled. This is Mr. May's debut novel and I am already excited for his next one!

[Greer Andjanetta · Rating 3 out of 5]

A long, dry, somewhat boring book. It seems that most books set i9n Russia come across as grey, drab and cold. This book is exceptionally so as it is set in a prison island far away from Moscow. The writing style is readable but there is very little in the story, a murder investigation, to hold the reader's interest. It was a chore to finish this one.

[Jim Bogue · Rating 4 out of 5]

A body is found outside at the gulag on Solovetsky Island in the 1920s. The protagonist is a young zek who is commandeered into the investigation as a sidekick to a veteran policeman now a prisoner. There is a further killing, a beautiful woman, and a variety of suspects. Fun and intriguing read!

[Steph · Rating 1 out of 5]

could not finish. it had an interesting premise & the author obviously did a lot of research & knows his facts but it was much too slow. i guess i was looking for a murder mystery with history & this book is a history with a murder mystery.

[Alison Pilkington · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting ‘detective’ story set in the Russian prison camps of the 1920s. Not a setting a know much about but it brought it to life without being to depressing. It kept my interest throughout and I wanted to know the outcome

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

More info on the post WWI prison camps and policies than I ever wanted to know. Me thinks the author wasn't sure if he wanted to write in the classic Russian style or write history. All I felt along the way was GET ON with it! Take out a third of this book and it might have been a 3.5 rating.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book, even though I thought there were some rough edges. The description of life in a 1920s Soviet prison camp was interesting and the mystery kept me reading until the end. Good and well constructed characters.

[The Sass Man · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars

[John Francy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too slow, I couldn't get into it. Otherwise well researched.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and great historical info