THE TIMES ''THRILLER OF THE YEAR'' AND CWA GOLD DAGGER SHORTLISTED AUTHOR RETURNS!

''Conjures up Stalinist Russia with evocative detail and the dread and menace that permeate everyday life'' Financial Times

''Utterly compelling, both in its propulsive plotting and the dark and dangerously relevant themes it explores'' Jake Arnott

''You''ll find yourself looking over your shoulder when you leave the house!'' Trevor Wood

Winter 1953. Beneath a pitch-black Leningrad sky, two bodies lie near the towering statue of Lenin outside the Finland Station. ''Nothing sinister, here, just a simple hit and run,'' an officer in the MGB secret police assures militia detective Revol Rossel. Now he knows it''s murder.

Only recently released from a brutal Siberian labour camp and determined to find his missing sister at last, Rossel wants nothing to do with this new case. But his alcoholic, broken superior officer, Captain Lipukhin, seizes upon it as his salvation - a last chance to be a true Soviet hero.

Along with sharp-witted Senior Lieutenant Lidia Gerashvili, and Major Nikitin, the interrogator who once cut off Rossel''s fingers, Rossel sets off on the trail of a murderer whose crimes surpass those of even the deranged tsar Ivan the Terrible. A trail leading to a dark, hidden episode in Bolshevik history filled with unspeakable horrors.

There is only one eyewitness - Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, whose giant right hand stretches out towards the frozen River Neva. Lenin, Rossel thinks, seems to be pointing at someone. But who?

PRAISE FOR BEN CREED

''Ben Creed has a genuine gift for conjuring up Stalin''s Leningrad in all its beauty and misery'' THE TIMES

''Reminded me of Gorky Park, only I liked this tense, complex thriller even better''JAMES PATTERSON

''Brilliantly orchestrated and totally engrossing'' THE CRIME WRITERS'' ASSOCIATION

''A worthy successor to Cruz Smith''s Arkady Renko'' FINANCIAL TIMES

''A fantastically tense atmosphere . . . A spine-tingling page-turner'' SUN