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A review by ridgewaygirl
The Gentle Axe by R.N. Morris
4.0
"If I may make one further suggestion, your excellency. I fully accept the disciplinary action that you have initiated against me. However, I would propose that you postpone my suspension."
"That's out of the question. I do not go back on my decisions."
"Do you ever gamble, Yaroslav Nikolaevich?"
The prokuror regarded Porfiry with as much affront as if he had spat in his face.
"I propose a wager--that's all," pressed Profiry. "Delay my suspension for two days. If I have not solved the case, you may suspend me, indefinitely--without pay. If I have solved the case, I ask you to take no action against me. My success will rebound to your credit. My failure will give you a scapegoat."
Prokuror Liputin pinched his lower lip pensively. "I am Russian, Porfiry Petrovich. Of course I gamble."
The Gentle Axe by is set in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg and features an investigator adept at working the arcane rules and hierarchy of the Russian justice system to see the proper culprits arrested. By working for justice, however, Porfiry Petrovich will never be able to work his way up the career ladder, stepping, as he does, on the toes of his betters. He's still a little haunted by a case he solved a few years ago, that of the student Raskolnikov, and it affects how he deals with some of the people he comes into contact with.
When a body is found hanged from a tree in Petrovsky Park, and a suitcase containing the corpse of a second man, it looks like an easy case to solve. Clearly, the hanged man murdered the other man and then hanged himself in a fit of remorse. But Porfiry demands all sorts of unreasonable things; autopsies for both of the murdered men, for example, the results of which cloud the easy solution. His investigation takes him everywhere from the rooms of a young prostitute to publishing house specializing in philosophic translations.
This book is both an intricately plotted detective novel and an homage to Dostoevsky. It was fun finding references throughout the book to Dostoevsky's novels, although I'm sure I missed most of them.
"That's out of the question. I do not go back on my decisions."
"Do you ever gamble, Yaroslav Nikolaevich?"
The prokuror regarded Porfiry with as much affront as if he had spat in his face.
"I propose a wager--that's all," pressed Profiry. "Delay my suspension for two days. If I have not solved the case, you may suspend me, indefinitely--without pay. If I have solved the case, I ask you to take no action against me. My success will rebound to your credit. My failure will give you a scapegoat."
Prokuror Liputin pinched his lower lip pensively. "I am Russian, Porfiry Petrovich. Of course I gamble."
The Gentle Axe by is set in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg and features an investigator adept at working the arcane rules and hierarchy of the Russian justice system to see the proper culprits arrested. By working for justice, however, Porfiry Petrovich will never be able to work his way up the career ladder, stepping, as he does, on the toes of his betters. He's still a little haunted by a case he solved a few years ago, that of the student Raskolnikov, and it affects how he deals with some of the people he comes into contact with.
When a body is found hanged from a tree in Petrovsky Park, and a suitcase containing the corpse of a second man, it looks like an easy case to solve. Clearly, the hanged man murdered the other man and then hanged himself in a fit of remorse. But Porfiry demands all sorts of unreasonable things; autopsies for both of the murdered men, for example, the results of which cloud the easy solution. His investigation takes him everywhere from the rooms of a young prostitute to publishing house specializing in philosophic translations.
This book is both an intricately plotted detective novel and an homage to Dostoevsky. It was fun finding references throughout the book to Dostoevsky's novels, although I'm sure I missed most of them.