Winter 1953. Beneath a pitch-black Leningrad sky, two bodies lie near the towering statue of Lenin outside the Finland Station. 'Nothing sinister, here, just a simple hit and run,' an officer in the MGB secret police assures militia detective Revol Rossel. Now he knows it's murder. Only recently released from a brutal Siberian labour camp and determined to find his missing sister at last, Rossel wants nothing to do with this new case. But his alcoholic, broken superior officer, Captain Liphukin, seizes upon it as his salvation – a last chance to be a true Soviet hero. Along with sharp-witted Sergeant Lidia Gerashvili, and Major Nikitin, the interrogator who once cut off Rossel's fingers, Rossel sets off on the trail of a murderer whose crimes surpass those of even the deranged tsar Ivan the Terrible. A trail leading to a dark, hidden episode in Bolshevik history filled with unspeakable horrors. There is only one eyewitness – Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, whose giant right hand stretches out towards the frozen River Neva. Lenin, Rossel thinks, seems to be pointing at someone. But who?

A Times 'Best New Thriller' for May 2022 'Enthralling ... Sharp dialogue and flashes of dry wit' Financial Times 'Ben Creed has a genuine gift for conjuring up Stalin's Leningrad in all its beauty and misery' The Times 'A cleverly constructed thriller' Sunday Times 'A fantastically tense atmosphere ... A spine-tingling page-turner' The Sun ___________Leningrad, winter 1952. An invisible killer known as Koshchei - a nightmare of Slavic folklore - stalks the streets, leaving a distinctive and gruesome mark upon its victims. Three thousand kilometres away in a Gulag labour colony, threatened by the vicious criminals who rule the camp and tormented by the Arctic cold, former militia lieutenant Revol Rossel is close to death. But then a brutal saviour descends from the skies: the state security interrogator who years ago ruined his life is back, tasking Rossel with tracking down the murderer. As the hunt continues, the two men uncover riddle after riddle, including a clue to finding a weapon of unimaginable power - a weapon the Kremlin's scheming plotters will kill for...

The first in a trilogy, City of Ghosts is set in the Leningrad of 1951 where the shadows of the war and the threats of Stalinism loom large. When five blackened corpses are found neatly arranged between three parallel railway lines, even Revol Rossel - once a Conservatoire-trained violinist, now a humble state militia-cop - is sickened by the gruesome scene. Whether victims of the MGB or a crazed yet methodical killer, these bodies soon lead Rossel back into the dark and ruthless heart of the Soviet classical music establishment, a place where his dreams were shattered and his ghosts barely laid to rest.

A Times 'Best New Thriller' for May 2022 'Enthralling ... Sharp dialogue and flashes of dry wit' Financial Times 'Ben Creed has a genuine gift for conjuring up Stalin's Leningrad in all its beauty and misery' The Times 'A cleverly constructed thriller' Sunday Times 'A fantastically tense atmosphere ... A spine-tingling page-turner' The Sun ___________Leningrad, winter 1952. An invisible killer known as Koshchei - a nightmare of Slavic folklore - stalks the streets, leaving a distinctive and gruesome mark upon its victims. Three thousand kilometres away in a Gulag labour colony, threatened by the vicious criminals who rule the camp and tormented by the Arctic cold, former militia lieutenant Revol Rossel is close to death. But then a brutal saviour descends from the skies: the state security interrogator who years ago ruined his life is back, tasking Rossel with tracking down the murderer. As the hunt continues, the two men uncover riddle after riddle, including a clue to finding a weapon of unimaginable power - a weapon the Kremlin's scheming plotters will kill for...

A Times 'Best New Thriller' for May 2022 'Enthralling ... Sharp dialogue and flashes of dry wit' Financial Times 'Ben Creed has a genuine gift for conjuring up Stalin's Leningrad in all its beauty and misery' The Times 'A cleverly constructed thriller' Sunday Times 'A fantastically tense atmosphere ... A spine-tingling page-turner' The Sun ___________Leningrad, winter 1952. An invisible killer known as Koshchei - a nightmare of Slavic folklore - stalks the streets, leaving a distinctive and gruesome mark upon its victims. Three thousand kilometres away in a Gulag labour colony, threatened by the vicious criminals who rule the camp and tormented by the Arctic cold, former militia lieutenant Revol Rossel is close to death. But then a brutal saviour descends from the skies: the state security interrogator who years ago ruined his life is back, tasking Rossel with tracking down the murderer. As the hunt continues, the two men uncover riddle after riddle, including a clue to finding a weapon of unimaginable power - a weapon the Kremlin's scheming plotters will kill for...