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The Gentle Axe by R. N. Morris

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3.0

Set in St. Petersburg Russia in 1866. An old woman finds two men murdered in a park--one of them a dwarf. The investigation takes off from there.

A most dark and dreary mystery with a plot that slowly unfolds to the reader. I had to really work to keep all the Russian names straight in my mind as I read. I was intrigued that the author chose Porfiry Petrovich (the police investigator in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment) to be the detective. It created a depth to the character that wouldn't have been there otherwise.
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