A review by martydah
Penguin Lost by Andrey Kurkov

5.0

Think of how Gogol would have written his satires in the 21st century and you come pretty close to Andrey Kurkov's tale of Ukrainian writer searching for his lost penguin. Viktor Zolotaryov, who had been in the run from mobsters, returns to Kiev to find that his penguin, Misha, has been taken away by another mobster. Forced to navigate the Ukrainian underworld in order to track Misha down, even becoming the PR writer for a mobster-turned-political candidate, Viktor eventually learns that the penguin might well be in war-torn Chechnya. After a stint in a Dante's-Inferno-esque crematorium, run by the warlord who has taken Misha for his personal zoo, he and Misha are reunited. That is not, however, the end of the twists and turns Kurkov packs into this small but highly entertaining black-comedy.