THE LOST SOLDIERS

A dutiful detective slogs through his weird community to probe an even weirder crime.

The absurdity of war and its aftermath hang over Kurkov’s elegantly satirical series of Kyiv Mysteries, set in Ukraine shortly after the end of World War I. In this third episode, hapless Everyman Samson Kolechko is tasked with probing yet another outlandish case, the disappearance of 28 Red Army soldiers who vanished after visiting a local bathhouse, leaving only their uniforms behind. Samson’s finesse as an investigator is attributable to his “imperishable ear,” severed by the Red Army during the war but still highly effective—and perhaps even more effective than a regular ear as it helps him hear distant conversations. His investigation of this implausible mystery serves primarily as a MacGuffin for a Kafkaesque journey through postrevolutionary Kyiv. The large cast of citizens is equally hilarious and unhelpful. For starters, there’s Briskin the meat speculator; Ignat Ustimovich Mrachkovsky, who worked as a stoker at the bathhouse at the time of the disappearance; and the “surgeon-princess” Vera Ignatyevna Gedroits, who doesn’t remember Samson, even though she removed two bullets from his arm not long ago. Indeed, it’s a running joke that Samson is highly forgettable. His longtime girlfriend Nadezhda, now his wife, dreams mainly of riding horses. Is there any escape from this madness? The novel’s final line is “The end, but to be continued.” The prolific Kurkov writes trenchantly about contemporary Ukraine. Though his tale is set more than a century ago, its parallels to conditions today are clear.

A darkly comic mystery with deep roots in history.