The Russian Detective

Perhaps the most handsome graphic novel of the year… mirrored corridors, snarling wolves, snowy streets and duellists in the night framed by slender trees and dark water. * Guardian, Books of the year *Dostoevsky eat your heart out – here come the women crime writers erased from the Russian canon! – Val McDermidCould not be more rich or more beautiful if it tried. This is a book that replays multiple readings… its illustrations, so deeply atmospheric and so inordinately beautiful * Observer *I mightily enjoyed lingering over this beautifully-drawn story. A deliciously layered palimpsest of texture, period pastiche and detail; subversive, immersive and elegant – Kate Charlesworth, author of Sally HeathcoteThe Russian Detective is truly incredible… a gorgeous intricate work of art with a really gripping and touching story. The book took me to Russia so fully that I could almost taste the vodka! Carol Adlam does character detail so well, all her illustrations are full of daring experiments with scale and structure, but also so many small moments of humour and warmth. – Helen Cross, author of My Summer of LoveGrin-inducingly clever, this is a thrilling tour de force – Stephen Holland * Comics Laureate *

Carol Adlam holds a PhD in Russian and an MA in Illustration from the Cambridge School of Art. She won a World Illustration Award in 2018, and was shortlisted in both 2016 and 2015. She was a writer-in-residence at the University of St Andrews in 2020 and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge in 2021.