Petrovka 38, the First Thriller Out of Russia

The first thriller to come out of the Soviet Union may alter our views of Russian writing as well as their society. For here is a Moscow in which we encounter gangsters, beatniks, junkies, murderers, juvenile delinquents, and tough cops that make Moscow seem very like Chicago, New York, or London.Petrovka 38 is the telephone number of the Criminal Investigation Department in Moscow. Three brilliantly characterized detectives are assigned to hunt down a gang that has been organizing armed raids and murder. In the first pages, a policeman is brutally killed. A schoolboy is picked up for questioning. His confession gives a lead to other members of the gang, but while the police are tracking down the merciless cop-killers, the gangleader is planning the great crime--involving a double murder and the theft of art treasures. The pursuit and the plan develop simultaneously.Much fuss may be made of the revelations of greed and crime in Soviet society today as well as the skill and verve with which Julian Semyonov shows his Moscow police in action against the villains. Petrovka 38 will be read avidly by the fans of Ian Fleming and John Le Carre, but also by those who are curious about what Moscow is really like, above ground and underground.

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