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Andrey Kurkov: Банное дело (The Lost Soldiers)
The Russian title could perhaps be translated as Bathhouse Goings–on. Both titles are apposite As in his two previous books it features an investigator called Samson Kolechko who is frequently referred to as the young investigator in this book. He is aided by his colleague Kholodny, which meancold in In Russian and who is referred to as thethe former priest as that is what he was. There is a somewhat aggressive boss calledNayden.
The book is set in Kyiv in the early years of the Soviet Union.
Their first case involves a man called Shpakevich who is to be arrested. Unfortunately when they get to his house, he has disappeared. This is going to cause some problems so they decide to execute him anyway even though he is not present. They fake a death by shooting a tailor’s dummy and producing a death certificate. If he does turn up, he can then be easily disposed of.
However, the main concern of the book is the eponymous lost soldiers. A group of twenty-eight of them had gone to the local bath house. However, while their clothes are still there, hey seem to have all disappeared. They cannot just have walked away as a troop of naked men would clearly have been noticed. One theory is that they killed their leader before disappearing. Carrying out a more detailed research in the bathhouse Samson finds a bone at the back of the oven used to heat the water and it looks suspiciously like a human femur. This theory fails when he shows the bone to a surgeon who points out that it is in fact the bone of a female and not a male.
The bath house has nominally been closed but it is clear that the the employees are using it to hold parties. These parties seem to be organised by the chiropodist who works at the bath house and Samson suspects him and, perhaps the stoker.
We learn from a previous book that our hero lost his ear in the war. When I say that he lost it, what I mean is that it was cut off but he managed to keep the severed ear. The advantage is that the ear can still hear wherever it is even if it is not actually attached to him. He manages to plant the ear in the clothing of the stoker and gets to listen to what is happening when the former employees have a party in the bath house.
Our hero gets a variety of clues which he follows up and which tend to lead them all over the place. For example, they suspect that the leader of the disappeared Russian troop was secretly a spy for the Wwhites. Could he have persuaded his fellow soldiers to defect?
Our hero follows up numerous leads relating to wild parties, the smuggling of black caviar, petty theft by various people, and numerous theories as to what may or may not have happened to the twenty-eight soldiers. Our hero is stabbed, his colleague has to have an emergency operation at the hospital. Indeed, it is chaos everywhere.
His wife is even involved as she works at the Bureau of Statistics wonder whose job is to get a statistical record of all boats on the river. The boat men do not cooperate, not least because you think this is a way that the government will steal their boats. Our hero is surprised to find that not only does his wife have a gun but that she has used it.
But it is all very lively. Our hero is shot at more than once.(and gets hit). Almost every day he gets a new lead which he dutifully follows up. Sometimes it is a red herring.while sometimes it seems to be leading somewhere. The story of the missing Russian soldiers seems to get embroiled with the story of a massive caviar theft from a government store house but are they connected or is this just another red herring? He is still unsure if the soldiers were killed and their bodies carted away or if they left their own accord or if, perhaps, something else happened.
Gradually, his wife’s job of recording all the boats on the river seems to somehow to get get entwined with his job.
The theft o fthe caviar is being investigated by the Cheka who are considered superior to the police. Our hero thinks disappearing soldiers and the caviar theft may be linked he cannot interfere in any way with the Cheka investigation openly or with his boss’s knowledge. Indeed, when it looks as though he’s getting too close, the Cheka slap him down.
His priest colleague get seriously ill so to a great extent he has to work on his own and he and he and we keep thinking he’s getting closer but yet everything seems somewhat elusive. Neither he nor we have any areal idea what is going on and exactly who the guilty parties are and why.
It really is a very clever and complicated story and a highly enjoyable read with new clues popping up all the time, dead bodies popping up all the time and suspicion falling on a host of characters some of whom may be guilty and some of who maybe innocent.
This book is set a hundred years ago but there is no doubt that Kurkov is referring to the present day with the nasty Soviets behaving, well, nastily. The.Cheka versus a local police sub theme is very much the Ukrainians versus Russians theme even if Kurkov does not spell it out in black-and-white, and I think we all know which side we are on.
Publishing history
First published in 20224by Folio
First published in English in 2026 by Harper Collins
Translated by Boris Dralyuk