Death on the Trans-Siberian Express by C.F. Farrington

 

First Line: It was eight o'clock on Friday morning, and Olga Pushkin was weeping on the arm of her new sofa.

 

Only Dmitri the hedgehog keeps Olga Pushkin, Railway Engineer Third Class, company in her tiny rail-side hut outside the small Siberian town of Roslazny. When she's not busy taking care of the tracks, she's hard at work on her book, Find Your Rail Self: 100 Life Lessons from the Trans-Siberian Railway. She longs for escape and the opportunity to study literature at Tomsk State University, the Oxford of West Siberia.

 

But life begins to intrude on Olga. She receives a hurtful poison pen letter, Roslazny experiences a minor crime wave, and then she's knocked unconscious  by a man falling from the Trans-Siberian-- an American tourist with his throat cut and his mouth stuffed with ten-ruble coins. When another death occurs, Roslazny's new police sergeant, Vassily Marushkin, takes on the case, only to find himself arrested as the killer. Olga wants to help prove Vassily's innocence, but how will she do it?

 

~

 

Death on the Trans-Siberian Railway is a book that I wanted to like much more than I did. The mystery was intriguing and kept me guessing, and I did enjoy the setting and cultural insights into Siberian life; however, the author's writing style let his story down. There was too much tell and not enough show. In addition, the pace dragged and didn't show signs of life until past the halfway mark. The-- to me-- all-important cast of characters never really came to life either. Yes, Olga was the best of them all, and I did like getting to know her, but there were too many times when I felt that she was vying for sainthood. Her cretin of a boss, her verbally abusive father, her money pit of a best friend... Olga wants to be all things to all people whether or not they deserve it, and it was exhausting watching her tying herself in knots to please them all.

There is a second book in this series, Blood on the Siberian Snow, but I won't be reading it. I do, however, wish Olga well.

Death on the Trans-Siberian Express by C.F. Farrington

eISBN: 9781472133113

Constable © 2021

eBook, 303 pages

 

Amateur Sleuth, #1 Olga Pushkin mystery

Rating: C-

Source: Purchased from Amazon.