It is a gift for crime fiction fans that he writes in this genre ... Kurkov, as filtered through the supple translation of Boris Dralyuk, infuses The Silver Bone with wry humor.
A gripping whodunnit with surrealist flourishes ... Kurkov brings to life an overlooked and much-contested episode in Ukrainian history, capturing the brutality with which Soviet forces first attempted to establish control over the city.
The Silver Bone is a glorious aural portrait of a city in dangerous flux ... The tone is consistently droll ... The novel may be playful, but it poses fundamental questions at a time when bloody conflict has engulfed Europe again.
The book moves with the swift purposefulness of a procedural ... Translated from the Russian by poet Boris Dralyuk, Kurkov’s prose is brisk but capacious, with a quiet flair ... And though it is clear-eyed in its depiction of war’s sheer senselessness, The Silver Bone has an unusual poetic lightness too.
The Silver Bone is witty and enjoyable, Boris Dralyuk’s translation is playful and subtle, and apart from the odd rough edge – an episode or character that leads nowhere – it promises rich storytelling in future instalments.
Kurkov eschews conventional mystery plotting... but the finely drawn characters and harrowing descriptions of daily life in 1919 Kyiv leave a far more lasting impression than clever genre tricks ever could. With its earthy prose and stunning attention to detail, this stands apart.
