Sam Eastland

Recalled out of exile in Siberia on condition that he solve the mystery of the Romanov family murders, Pekkala, once the Tsar's most trusted ally, is partnered with the brother who betrayed him before discovering a dark secret that he realizes should stay hidden.

A Novel of Suspense

Eye of the Red Tsar

O Olho do Czar Vermelho

L'oeil du Tsar rouge

SEPTEMBER 1939. THE SECOND WORLD WAR HAS BEGUN. Even as the fighting rages in Poland, Stalin's long time obsession with the missing treasure of Tsar Nicholas II is rekindled. An informant claims to have information about the whereabouts of the man entrusted by the Tsar with hiding his gold. As the news of the informant reaches Stalin, however, the man is knifed to death. Stalin summons Pekkala to the Kremlin and orders him to solve the murder. To accomplish his mission, he must return to Borodok, the notorious Gulag where he himself spent many years as a prisoner. There, he must pose as a inmate in order to unravel the mystery . . . As he returns to the nightmares of his past, is this a mission too far for the great Pekkala?

Siberian Red

A soldier returns from the frontline of battle to report that Pekkala's charred body has been found at the site of an ambush. But Stalin refuses to believe that the indomitable Pekkala is dead. On Stalin's orders, Pekkala's assistant Kirov travels deep into the forests of Western Russia, following a trail of clues to a wilderness where partisans wage a brutal campaign against the Nazi invaders. Unknown to Kirov, he is being led into a trap. A new enemy has emerged from the fog of war, more deadly than any Kirov or Pekkala have ever faced before. Pursuing the legend of a half-human creature, said to roam the landscape of this war within a war, each step brings Kirov closer to the truth about Pekkala's disappearance. Meanwhile, Pekkala's nemesis is also closing in for the kill.

The Beast in the Red Forest

It is 1939. The world stands on the brink of Armageddon. In the Soviet Union, years of revolution, fear and persecution have left the country unprepared to face the onslaught of Nazi Germany. For the coming battles, Stalin has placed his hopes on a 30-ton steel monster, known to its inventors as the T-34 tank, and, the 'Red Coffin' to those men who will soon be using it. But the design is not yet complete. And when Colonel Nagorski, the weapon's secretive and eccentric architect, is found murdered, Stalin sends for Pekkala, his most trusted investigator. Stalin is convinced that a sinister group calling itself the White Guild, made up of former soldiers of the Tsar, intend to bring about a German invasion before the Red Coffin is ready. While Soviet engineers struggle to complete the design of the tank, Pekkala must track down the White Guild and expose their plans to propel Germany and Russia into conflict.

The Red Coffin

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Sam Eastland's Archive 17. Deep in the Russian countryside, a thirty-ton killing machine known officially as T-34 is being developed in total secrecy. Its inventor is a rogue genius whose macabre death is considered an accident only by the innocent. Suspecting assassins everywhere, Stalin brings in his best—if least obedient—detective to solve a murder that’s tantamount to treason. Answerable to no one, Inspector Pekkala has the dictator’s permission to go anywhere and interrogate anyone. But the closer Pekkala gets to answers, the more questions he uncovers—first and foremost, why is the state’s most dreaded female operative, Commissar Major Lysenkova, investigating the case when she’s only assigned to internal affairs? In the shadows of one of history’s most notorious regimes, Pekkala is on a collision course with not only the Soviet secret police but the USSR’s deadliest military secrets. For what he’s about to unearth could put Stalin and his Communist state under for good—and bury Pekkala with them.

Shadow Pass

Inspector Pekkala investigates the death of a top Russian military engineer who was building a formidable weapon, a case with ties to dangerous secrets.

(Book). April 1945 Inspector Pekkala is in a race against time as he heads to Berlin to capture the plans for a secret weapon that could change the course of the war. "Excellently plotted and paced, with a lively cast, real and fictional." The London Times (Book of the Month) Berlin Red is the seveneth and final novel in this "gripping series of literary thrillers" ( Booklist ) by Sam Eastland, the nom de plume of acclaimed novelist and memoirist Paul Watkins. The previous Inspector Pekkala suspense novels published by Opus were Red Icon and The Beast in the Red Forest .

An Inspector Pekkala Novel of Suspense

Berlin Red

NEW BOOK from the author the bestselling INSPECTOR PEKKALA series The year is 1949. In the bombed-out ruins of Cologne, Hanno Dasch is king. Director of the most successful black market operation in post-war Germany, Dasch has kept his clients supplied with goods so extravagant and rare that they were almost impossible to find even at the height of Germany's conquests. Nobody but Dasch, his enigmatic daughter and the war criminal he keeps as his bodyguard know how he does it. None of this has escaped the attention of Allied Intelligence, who face not only the systemic corruption of a country where everything is in short supply, but the growing threat of Stalin's KGB. Fearing that Dasch will soon expand his business to include dealings with Russia, and invite the further meddling of Russian agents in the west, the CIA sets in motion an undercover operation to infiltrate and, ultimately, destroy Dasch's empire. A disgraced American Army officer, Nathan Carter, is recruited to approach Dasch and to ingratiate himself with promises of stolen army supplies. As Carter moves further and further into the labyrinth of Dasch's world, it soon becomes clear that the black market ring has already been compromised, but by someone even more dangerous than the Russians...

The Elegant Lie

A soldier returns from the frontline of battle to report that Pekkala's charred body has been found at the site of an ambush. But Stalin refuses to believe that the indomitable Pekkala is dead.On Stallin's orders, Pekkala's assistant Kirov travels deep into the forests of Western Russia, following a trail of clues to a wilderness where partisans wage a brutal campaign against the Nazi invaders.Unknown to Kirov, he is being led into a trap.A new enemy has emerged from the fog of war, more deadly than any Kirov or Pekkala have ever faced before. Pursuing the legend of a half-human creature, said to roam the landscape of this war within a war, each step brings Kirov closer to the truth about Pekkala's disappearance. Meanwhile, Pekkala's nemesis is also closing in for the kill.

A follow up to the series that includes Eye of the Red Tsar finds a haunted Inspector Pekkala investigating the death of a top Russian military engineer who was building a formidable weapon, a case with ties to dangerous secrets. 30,000 first printing.

(Book). A big satisfying Stalin-era thriller from the master of the genre, the perfect read for fans of Phillip Kerr, Erik Larson or Robert Harris. The German Army begins to shatter before the advancing Soviet forces in 1944. Two Russian soldiers burrow into the crypt of a German church, where, clutched in the hands of a priest's skeleton, they discover a priceless icon last seen in the grasp of Rasputin, the mad monk who mesmerized the Romanovs. When news of the discovery reaches Moscow, Stalin calls upon his most trusted investigator, Inspector Pekkala, to unravel the secret of the icon's past.

Red Icon

As Hitler's forces smash into Soviet territory, annihilating the Red Army divisions in its path, a lone German scout plane is forced down. Contained within the briefcase of its passenger is the seemingly inconsequential painting of a hyalophoria cecropia, otherwise known as a red moth.

The Red Moth

April, 1945. East of Berlin, the Red Army stands poised to unleash its final assault upon the ruined capital of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich. To the north, at a lonely outpost near the Baltic sea, German scientists perfect a guidance system for the mighty V2 rocket, which has already caused massive damage to the cities of London and Antwerp. This device, known only by the codename Diamondstream, will allow the rocket to arrive at its target with pin-point accuracy. So devastating is the potential of this newly-mastered technology that Hitler's promise to the German people of a 'miracle weapon' that will turn the tide of the war might actually come true. When a radio message sent to Hitler's Headquarters, heralding the success of Diamondstream, is intercepted by an English listening station, British Intelligence orders one of its last agents operating in Berlin to acquire the plans for the device, Desperate to evacuate their agent from the doomed city before the Red Army swarms through its streets, British Special Operations turns to the Kremlin for help. They ask for one man in particular - Inspector Pekkala. Anxious to acquire the plans for himself, Stalin readily agrees to risk his finest investigator on what appears to be a suicide mission. But when Pekkala learns the reason that the British have singled him out, he knows that he must make the journey, no matter what the outcome might be. The agent he must rescue is the woman he had planned to marry, before the Revolution tore them apart, sending her to Paris as a refugee and Pekkala to a gulag in Siberia. This time, for Pekkala, it is personal.

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.

The Inspector Pekkala thrillers take place in the treacherous world of Stalin's Russia. The main character, Inspector Pekkala, was the chief investigator of Tsar Nicholas. Dubber 'The Emerald Eye', his watchful gaze protected the Romanovs from internal and external threats to their security. When the Bolshevicks seized power and executed the Romanov family, Pekkala was thrown into the gulag. But when Russia comes under threat from an insurgent Nazi Germany, Stalin brings Pekkala back from his Siberian exile, appointing him the chief investigator of the red Tsar. As the threat of a Nazi invasion increases, Pekkala finds himself searching for the Romanov's lost gold, investigating the sabotage of Russia's secret weapon, and attempting to rescue the Tsar's amber treasures from Nazi looters.

Three Book Collection

The Inspector Pekkala Mysteries

The year is 1949. In the bombed-out ruins of Cologne, Hanno Dasch is king. Director of the most successful black market operation in post-war Germany, Dasch has kept his clients supplied with goods so extravagant and rare that they were almost impossible to find even at the height of Germany's conquests. Nobody but Dasch, his enigmatic daughter and the war criminal he keeps as his bodyguard know how he does it. None of this has escaped the attention of Allied Intelligence, who face not only the systemic corruption of a country where everything is in short supply, but the growing threat of Stalin's KGB. Fearing that Dasch will soon expand his business to include dealings with Russia, and invite the further meddling of Russian agents in the west, the CIA sets in motion an undercover operation to infiltrate and, ultimately, destroy Dasch's empire. A disgraced American Army officer, Nathan Carter, is recruited to approach Dasch and to ingratiate himself with promises of stolen army supplies. As Carter moves further and further into the labyrinth of Dasch's world, it soon becomes clear that the black market ring has already been compromised, but by someone even more dangerous than the Russians. Carter stumbles upon a counterfeiting ring, with whom Dasch has unwittingly gone into business, which seems to have been created with the sole purpose of destroying the Soviet economy, something it could easily do with the superlative quality of the forged bills it is producing. With Carter caught in the middle, and facing the danger that his cover might be blown at any moment, a race begins between the Russian and American spy agencies to uncover who is responsible, before the situation escalates to war.

As Hitler's forces smash into Soviet territory, annihilating the Red Army divisions in its path, a lone German scout plane is forced down. Contained within the briefcase of its passenger is the seemingly inconsequential painting of a hyalophoria cecropia, otherwise known as a red moth. Military Intelligence dismisses the picture as insignificant, but in the state of emergency Stalin suspects a German plot. He summons his old adversary, Inspector Pekkala - the elusive Finn who was once Tsar Nicholas II's personal detective - to discover the real significance of this strange wartime cargo. As the storm gathers around them, Pekkala, together with his assistant from the shadowy Bureau of Special Operations, soon find themselves on the path of the most formidable art thieves in history. Those real target is a secret and prized possession of the Romanovs, once considered to be the eighth wonder of the world. But as the Soviet Union crumbles in the face of the advancing cataclysm, and the chaos of war is everywhere, Pekkala realizes that to protect the Tsar's treasure he must break through enemy lines. His desperate mission is to outfox the German invaders, or face the wrath of Stalin himself.

Sam Eastland

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