Mario wrote:
"To keep this on topic, what about modern Russian hardboiled
and noir literature? There's the right environment, lots of
stuff happening, a great tradition of dark literature. Yet I
haven't come across a single Russian novel on the topic. Are
they just not being translated?"
I happen to be in the middle of Dayight by Russell James,
much of which is set in Leningrad, just before the collapse
of Communism. It is told from the perspective of a smalltime
Brit criminal acting as a gobetween in an art smuggling scam.
He makes numerous comparisons to Prohibition, gangsters, etc;
he presents it as very similar to the US in the '20s. And
James is far from the only Western writer to set crime
fiction (even leaving aside spy novels) in Russia -- Philip
Kerr, Martin Cruz Smith, etc/
So this got me thinking that there must be Russian crime
writers who write about their society from the inside. I'd
really be interested in reading some. It seems that cultures
in flux offer a particularly good setting for crime fiction
as many people scurry about, trying to capitalize upon
shortages, get hard currency, etc.
Mark
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