The Case of the General's Thumb

Humor & Entertainment

Andrey Kurkov

Humor

VINTAGE (RAND)

Viktor - last seen in Death and the Penguin fleeing Mafia vengeance on an Antarctica-bound flight booked for Penguin Misha - seizes a heaven-sent opportunity to return to Kiev with a new identity. Clear now as to the enormity of abandoning Misha, then convalescent from a heart-transplant, Viktor determines to make amends. Viktor falls in with a Mafia boss who engages him to help in his election campaign, then introduces him to men who might further his search for Misha, said to be in a private zoo in Chechnya. What ensues is for Viktor both a quest and an odyssey of atonement, and, for the reader, an experience as rich, topical and illuminating as Death and the Penguin.

Penguin Lost

Literature & Fiction

Humor & Satire

Random House]

Bickford Fuse

Quercus Publishing

The Silver Bone

MacLehose Press

A hugely entertaining romp through the beautiful city of Lviv, by the author of Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees, now reporting widely on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, his home country.\nStrange things are afoot in the cosmopolitan city of Lviv, western Ukraine. Seagulls are circling and the air smells salty, though Lviv is a long way from the sea . . .\nA ragtag group gathers round a mysterious grave in Lychakiv Cemetery - among them an ex-KGB officer and an ageing hippy he used to spy on. Before long, Captain Ryabtsev and Alik Olisevych are teaming up to discover the source of the "anomalies". 
Meanwhile, Taras - who makes a living driving kidney-stone patients over cobblestones in his ancient Opel Vectra - is courting Darka, who works nights at a bureau de change despite being allergic to money. 
They young lovers don't know it, but their fate depends on two lonely old men, relics of another era, who will stop at nothing to save their city.\nShot through with Kurkov's unique brand of black humour and vodka-fuelled magic realism, Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv is an affectionate portrait one the world's most intriguing cities.

Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv: Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023

Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv

In Lviv, a multi-ethnic town in Galicia, strange things are happening. 
And it’s not to do with the aged hippies who are gathering around a 
mysterious grave in the cemetery by night. Nor about the former 
KGB-man who wants to apologise to the people he spied on. And nor 
is it about the fact that a young woman with an allergy to money is 
working in the ›bureau de change‹. And it’s certainly not about the 
ancient Opel Vectra racing at full speed over the cobblestones to cure 
patients with kidney stones. 
No, in Lviv, far stranger things are happening. Seagulls are circling in 
the sky, the air smells salty: it seems as though the town, situated far 
inland in the West of the Ukraine, is being haunted by the sea ... 
In Andrej Kurkow’s Lviv, miracles can happen in every little side street 
and on every street corner. And that’s all down to the power of love, 
the boundless imagination of a writer – and the immortal music of Jimi Hendrix.

Diary of an Invasion

Penguin Lost finds Viktor Zolotaryov sneaking back into Kiev under an assumed identity to undertake a dangerous mission: He wants to find Misha, his penguin, whom he fears has fallen into the hands of the criminal mob looking for Viktor himself. Guilt-ridden and determined to do what it takes, Viktor falls in with a Mafia boss who employs him in an election-rigging campaign, in return for introducing Viktor to other mobsters who can help him find Misha. And as Viktor goes from mobster to mobster, trying to survive in Kiev’s criminal underground, the evidence mounts that Misha may be someplace even worse: the zoo of a Chechen warlord.What ensues is for Viktor both a quest and an odyssey of atonement, and for the reader, a stirring mix of the comic and the tragic, the heartbreaking and the inspiring.

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Harvill Press

A Matter of Death and Life

Harvill Pr

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Andrey Kurkov. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Andrey Kurkov