"Both a pleasure and a testament to life in Ukraine, before" Sunday Times
"Ukraine''s greatest living novelist" New European
"A Ukrainian Murakami" Guardian
A love letter to the beautiful city of Lviv, by the author of Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees.
Strange things are afoot in the cosmopolitan city of Lviv, western Ukraine. Seagulls are circling and the air smells salty, though Lviv is a long way from the sea . . .
A ragtag group gathers round a mysterious grave in Lychakiv Cemetery - among them an ex-KGB officer and an ageing hippy he used to spy on. Before long, Captain Ryabtsev and Alik Olisevych are teaming up to discover the source of the "anomalies".
Meanwhile, Taras -- who makes a living driving kidney-stone patients over cobblestones in his ancient Opel Vectra - is courting Darka, who works nights at a bureau de change despite being allergic to money.
