Book of the Week: Brent Ghelfi's "Volk's Shadow"

This sequel to Ghelfi's outstanding debut (last year's Volk's Game) is another high-stakes adventure set in the dark underworld of crime and corruption that plagues modern Russia. Col. Alexei Volkovoy, an ex-Special Forces soldier and one-man wrecking crew, is tasked to recover a missing Fabergé egg. His search puts him up against the Russian mob, Chechen guerrillas and powerful apparatchiks in the Kremlin, but none of them are a match for Ghelfi's cunning anti-hero. Volkovoy is not an especially likable man -- he's violent, suspicious and irretrievably damaged -- but he's a fascinating one to read about. Volk's Shadow doesn't move with the lightning pacing of the first book -- in most parts it's more mystery than thriller -- but even so Ghelfi delivers the goods.

Comments

[Cameron Hughes]

Ghelfi is great.