The Body Outside the Kremlin by James L. May
While the little over 400 pages in James L. May’s The Body Outside the Kremlin (Delphinium Books) may not look intimidating, there’s so much there: the isolated emptiness, the cold, the beauty and the violence. It’s a weighty murder mystery that slowly unfolds, in competition with its setting.
It takes place in a fortified monastery complex located on the frozen island of Solovetsky in the arctic White Sea. Built over 500 years ago, it was once one of the largest Christian citadels in northern Russia, a remote outpost which provided the mainland with timber and sea salt and fish. Among the monks were artisans, gardeners, painters, librarians, writers and architects, as well as laborers and soldiers who successfully fought off the armies of nations intent on capturing the island for its riches.
Remote and foreboding, it was also a place of exile for political prisoners and opponents of autocracy and the teachings of the Orthodox church. During Vladimir Lenin’s reign of political terror, it was a brutal prison camp. Of this island prison, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “A scream from here would never be heard.”
This is where Tolya Bogomolov, a young university student, has been sentenced to three years of hard labor.
Starving and shivering, Tolya struggles to survive. He thought he’d found a friend in an older man whose job was restoring icons, centuries-old paintings of saints and miracles. His job allowed him slightly better lodgings and rations, which he shared with the young student — an onion to eat, a crust of bread — but mostly Tolya found comfort there.
Then he is inexplicably chosen to assist in the investigation of a murder. The body, found floating in the icy waters of the sea, has been deposited on the beach for inspection. It is, of course, his friend.
Tolya is assigned to help an aging ex-detective and fellow prisoner find the murderer and the motive. The two men — one old, half-blind, tired and limping; the other driven by starvation and the curiosity of youth — navigate the workplaces, forests, cathedrals and dorms, questioning fellow prisoners, prison guards and monks. The investigation is plodding, punctuated by an additional murder, executions, beatings, betrayals and sex.
The world of Solovetsky is inescapable and ruthless. Characters starve to death, go mad. Tolya and his mentor fend off their terror while trying to find some truth that may save their own lives. The horrors the prisoners endure look unbearable and unbelievable; readers will need to remind themselves that the island of Solovetsky does exist, that men and women were indeed exiled there 100 years ago, and some survived.
The Body Outside the Kremlin is a work of fiction, but rooted firmly in Russian history and geography. It’s a worthy read, almost palpable with its merciless cold and rising moon and the haunting stone edifices, nobly, stubbornly surviving.
The Body Outside the Kremlin is now available for purchase.
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