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Beschreibung des Verlags
In the midst of the fighting, two Russian soldiers seek refuge in the crypt of a German church. There, clutched in the hands of a skeleton priest, they find The Shepherd; a priceless icon thought to have been destroyed long ago. When news of its discovery reaches Moscow, Stalin calls upon his most trusted investigator, Inspector Pekkala, once a favorite of Tsar and known to all of Russia as The Emerald Eye. To unravel the secret of the icon's past, Pekkala traces its last known whereabouts to a band of self-mutilating radicals known as The Skoptsy, who were hunted to extinction years by the Bolshevik Secret Police. Or so it was believed. As Pekkala soon learns, the last survivors of this brutal sect have clung to life in the shadowy forests of Siberia.
With the reappearance of the icon, they have returned to claim the treasure they say belongs to them alone, bringing with them a new and terrible weapon to unleash upon the Russian people. Unless the Emerald Eye can stop them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Early in Eastland's excellent sixth Inspector Pekkala novel (after 2014's The Beast in the Red Forest), Nicholas II gives the Finnish inspector (who's the czar's personal investigator) an assignment at the outbreak of WWI that involves a small painting known as The Shepherd, a religious icon believed to have mystical properties. In 1915, the czarina entrusts the painting to her spiritual adviser, Grigori Rasputin, and soon it's lost, possibly destroyed. In 1945, Pekkala's new boss, Joseph Stalin, orders him to find the missing icon. Pekkala uncovers a trail of infamy that involves the Soviet secret police, an unauthorized peace delegation, a deadly poison that ends up in the hands of Adolf Hitler, and a religious sect that practices ritual castration. Eastland (the pseudonym of Paul Watkins) ties the complicated plot neatly together, working in fascinating historical details. Newcomers curious to know what Pekkala was up to in the 30 years in between will want to read the earlier entries in this fine historical suspense series.
