The Darkening Field

Written by William Ryan

Narrated by Robin Sachs

It is 1937, and Captain Alexei Korolev finds himself on an airplane bound for Odessa after the suspicious suicide of a loyal young party member who supposedly had an illicit relationship with the party director. His instructions are to determine if her suicide was actually a cover-up for murder, and if so, to find her killer. She was working on the set of a movie subsidized by the state, and the pool of possible suspects is large and daunting. Korolev finds help from several quarters, but none of them can make up for the one important fact of his case which he cannot discuss. Moral, loyal, and also committed to justice, Korolev is trapped between the demands of the party and those of the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamscape Media Audio
• Release date: Feb 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781611206234

William Ryan

William Ryan is the author of five novels, including the Captain Korolev series which have been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year. His latest books are A House of Ghosts (2018). William teaches on the Crime Writing Masters at City University in London and the Writers & Artists 'Your Novel' writing course.

Reviews for The Darkening Field

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second novel featuring Alexei Korolev, a detective with the Moscow CID working in the late 1930s at the height of Stalin's purges. It is over seven years since I read the first novel, The Holy Thief (and six years since I bought this one), but this reflects the good and not so good aspects of the first book. The oppressive atmosphere of the times is quite well created, and the difficulty for an honest man to detect crime in an atmosphere where everything is mixed up with politics is well brought across. Korolev is a conflicted character, loyal to his country and accepting most of its mores most of the time, but also a religious believer, an interesting (and highly dangerous!) combination for the time. There are a lot of plot elements - a murdered actress, disaffected Ukrainians involved in gunrunning, and so on, and I did feel though that the various elements of the plot didn't hang together as well as they might have done, and I found the role of the Thieves a bit confusing. I wasn't initially totally clear exactly when this was set, but I think from the context it must be the late winter/early spring of 1937 - Yezhov has replaced Yagoda as NKVD chief, but Tukhachevsky is still around. Anyway, there will be a much shorter gap between my reading this and the third novel than between the first two books.

[kblinn_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book for its setting as much as anything. Ukraine in 1937 is not a place where one frequently finds a novel set. Ryan does a good job capturing the feel of the place back then when no one could trust anyone else. The main character, Alexei Korolev, is a Moscow detective who is sent to the Odessa area to investigate a death, specifically to determine whether it was a murder. A major movie was being filmed at an agricultural college, and one of the film's production workers, a beautiful young woman, was found dead from a hanging. Naturally one thing leads to another, and the one crime escalates into multiple crimes. Ryan very thoughtfully provides a list of characters at the beginning of the book because the names are somewhat difficult for westerners to grasp. The writer Isaac Babel is included in this novel as part of the movie crew which added an interesting bit of historical authenticity. I thought the book seemed realistic and liked it well enough that I now have Ryan's first novel, Holy Thief, on hand to read.

[khiemstra631 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book for its setting as much as anything. Ukraine in 1937 is not a place where one frequently finds a novel set. Ryan does a good job capturing the feel of the place back then when no one could trust anyone else. The main character, Alexei Korolev, is a Moscow detective who is sent to the Odessa area to investigate a death, specifically to determine whether it was a murder. A major movie was being filmed at an agricultural college, and one of the film's production workers, a beautiful young woman, was found dead from a hanging. Naturally one thing leads to another, and the one crime escalates into multiple crimes. Ryan very thoughtfully provides a list of characters at the beginning of the book because the names are somewhat difficult for westerners to grasp. The writer Isaac Babel is included in this novel as part of the movie crew which added an interesting bit of historical authenticity. I thought the book seemed realistic and liked it well enough that I now have Ryan's first novel, Holy Thief, on hand to read.

[zabethmarsh · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

From the opening paragraph of William Ryan’s second novel, The Darkening Field, readers will feel the tension that builds throughout the novel until a climactic ending. Set in 1937 Russia, lead detective Alexei Korolev must navigate his way through a minefield of clues that could solve a murder mystery but also spark political revolution.It is clear that Ryan is a master not only of plotting a well crafted mystery but also at describing settings and locations so smoothly that the reader will find themselves absent-mindedly rubbing their fingers to keep warm in the novel’s cold Russian nights. His hero, Korolev, has a distinct and clear mind that speaks plainly to the reader amid the precarious situation he finds himself in; even if he doesn’t dare voice his thoughts out loud to other characters. Darken Field is a straight murder and mystery novel with only enough personal life information about our characters to establish their motives but not enough to get sidetracked from the main plot. I wish I had read Ryan’s first novel, The Holy Thief, before this latest only because I’m looking forward to reading more about Korolev’s life during this potentially explosive time in Russian history. Certainly, this novel can be read purely for its entertainment value and readers would be rewarded for their efforts. However, there is so much more that readers can be intrigued about from this novel. For example, as a detective Korolev relies on a forensic team. My naïve mind couldn’t grasp what forensic evidence could be found in 1937. I discovered my error as forensic science has been practiced since the age of Caesar. By 1932 Harvard University had a chair of legal medicine. In addition, Ryan’s work will spark interest in post World War I political affairs in Europe. I hope readers take a few moments to review their history and grasp all that they can be inspired to learn from this amazing work of fiction.

[kltmd_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Almost Very GoodWilliam Ryan has chosen as his milieu a most difficult period, the Soviet Union during the 1930s. What we know in hindsight of this period raises the bar considerably for the novelist, the "willing suspension of disbelief." He almost pulls it off with a clever plot, the death of a young woman, a Party member who is a "close" friend of a high ranking commissar. The mood is dark and the chill soon enters the readers bones as the Captain Alexi Korolev tired and worried about his role in the investigation navigates the treachery of the warring sides, the counter-revolutionaries, the Thieves, and his bosses. His character is sympathetic, but he is the only one even minimally fleshed out. The dialogue often sounds like a poor translation to depression-era American idiom. This is a shame because the blurring of good guys and bad, heroes and terrorists, winners and losers could have been terrific, just not quite there.