Search This Blog

Saturday, September 3, 2022

#Sandtember: The Moscow Wolves Series by Sarah Armstrong

 #Sandtember


For the month of September our little book blogger community the SquadPod is delighted to present #Sandtember where we will be celebrating the work of Scottish independent publishing house Sandstone Press.

Make sure not to miss all the delicious reviews and content we will be sharingr by keeping up with events over on our Twitter and Instagram feeds via the links here:

Twitter          Instagram




As part of #Sandtember, it is my pleasure to reshare my reviews of the two books from one of my favourite Sandstone Press series The Moscow Wolves by Sarah Armstrong.

Book One: The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt

The Wolves Of Leninsky Prospekt (Moscow Wolves Book One) by Sarah Armstrong.

Published 7th February 2019 by Sandstone Press.

From the cover of the book:

You'd know if you were a spy... Wouldn't you?

Escaping failure as an undergraduate and a daughter, not to mention bleak 1970s England, Martha marries Kit - who is gay. Having a wife could keep him safe in Moscow in his diplomatic post. As Martha tries to understand her new life and makes the wrong friends, she walks straight into an underground world of counter-espionage.

Out of her depth, Martha no longer knows who can be trusted.

Shortlisted for the Bookmark Book Festival's Book of the Year Award 2020.

***********

1972: Martha is in trouble... again. At least in the eyes of the Cambridge University dons and her staid upper middle class parents. Sent down from Cambridge for daring to protest about women's rights, she finds herself back in the strangling atmosphere of her parental home, destined to never escape the dutiful life they have planned out for her.

But Martha has a plan. Her brother's friend Kit is off to Moscow to perform dodgy deeds under the guise of a respectable diplomat, and Martha is very keen to escape her current predicament and go along for the ride. Fortunately, Kit sees the advantages in having a wife at his side, especially since it will distract from the fact that he is gay, so a hastily arranged marriage ensues.

Martha cannot wait to experience the romantic Moscow she has read about, but things are not quite as she expected when she eventually finds herself living in a tiny apartment on Leninsky Prospekt, having replaced the disapproving eye of her parents for the strictures placed on Embassy wives and the constant surveillance of the security services. Despite having no idea how to behave in this strange world of subterfuge and endless mind-games, or who it is safe to become friends with, Martha finds herself falling in love with Moscow's secret, wild places, and inspired by a book of short stories that fate has brought into her possession, she maps them out during her lonely days in the city. She is desperate to make this enigmatic city her home, but how much of herself is she willing to sacrifice in the process?

The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt is an incredible combination of coming of age story and espionage thriller, with a deep vein of allegorical folklore. This makes it something of a cut above the when it comes to the wonderful way Sarah Armstrong creates the immersive Cold War atmosphere that envelopes you throughout this book.

Martha's independent nature proves her to be completely unsuited to the life of a diplomat's wife. Not for her the life of the dutiful little woman, living only to protect the reputation of her family, and support the career of her husband - especially when she discovers the reality of the closed off existence the Moscow wives are expected to lead. She wants so much more. I really admired this about her, but is seems obvious from the start that this is going to lead her into dangerous waters. It is this side of her character that makes her the perfect target to be tempted by those on the other side - and they know exactly how to strike at the heart of her disaffection.

Armstrong plays with some really interesting themes in the telling of this tale. We are in the heart of well-trodden Cold War country, with watchful eyes everywhere, where it is impossible to know who to trust, and yet she comes at this from an entirely new perspective - that of the women who have found themselves living in this world. I thoroughly enjoyed the exploration of class, sex, women's rights, and entitlement through the eyes of Martha, and the way folklore, heavy with hidden symbolism, is used to drive the story to its inevitable conclusion. The way Armstrong spins the notion of the 'wolf' throughout the threads of the tale is simply beautiful. Who is the wolf? Good question, to which there are no easy answers, and so many shades of meaning.

This is, on first sight, a simple tale of a woman who falls in love with a city, and through this developing relationship discovers the truth about herself, but there is so much more to take from this story, and its layers are like the secret meanings within the lines of the folktales that are sprinkled throughout the text - gradually becoming darker and more twisted as events play out. I adored it and urge you to discover for yourself what lies at the frozen heart of the wolves of Leninsky Prospekt - I guarantee you will enjoy finding out their secrets for yourself.

Book Two: The Starlings of Bucharest 

The Starlings Of Bucharest (Moscow Wolves Book Two) by Sarah Armstrong.

Published 22nd April 2021 by Sandstone.

From the cover of the book:

The threats people hold over us are most often imagined. We even create them for ourselves.

Ted moves to London to get away from the working-class community he was born into.

Hoping to train as a journalist, he moves to London and slides into debt. Things look up when he is given the opportunity to go to Romania to interview an art film director and then attend a Moscow film festival.

But others are watching him. And listening.



***********

1975: Ted is desperate to escape his working class roots, and the expectation that he will follow his father into the fishing industry in Harwich. Encouraged by praise for his writing skills, from one of his teachers during his formative years, Ted decides to have a stab at the life of a London journalist. London life is not quite what Ted had in mind though, and despite only rising to the dizzy heights of a seedy bedsit, he has got himself into debt, and has been driven to borrow money from his mother's holiday fund which he feels terrible about.

However, things are looking up, because Ted has managed to miraculously grab himself a job as a film reviewer for a small magazine, and has every intention of making a success of the role, despite his lack of experience. When he is offered the chance to head to Bucharest to interview a famous Romanian film director, Ted grabs the opportunity with both hands, but he soon discovers that things are far from easy for a Western journalist in an Eastern Bloc country at the height of the Cold War. Everyone is watched closely behind the Iron Curtain and treated with suspicion, but somehow Ted's naivety and the fact that he hails from the decadent West gets him noticed by the security services, which makes his first big break something of a disaster.

Although Ted's boss is not particularly happy with him when he returns to England, Ted is soon off again to report on a film festival even further into the lion's (or is it wolves?) den in the heart of Moscow. Since he has already become a person of interest in the eyes of the security sentinels, his movements are watched very closely by both sides as soon as he lands in the USSR. Ted is now, quite literally, in Cold War spy country and his life is about to get very complicated indeed...

The Starlings of Bucharest is the second novel in the Moscow Wolves series, and although different in feel to the first book, The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt, it is every bit as wonderfully immersive. There is a lot more dark humour this time around (the security reports are a delight!) and we have a complex set up influenced by the goings on in both Romania and Russia to spice things up.

Sarah Armstrong has as wonderful way of dropping you right into the tense Cold War atmosphere of the 1970s, but she comes at her subject in a way I have not experienced before, and I like it! Her protagonists are not the usual characters you expect to see in an espionage yarn. In this case, Ted is completely unprepared for the reality of Moscow life with its threats, be they real or imagined, and he makes terrible blunders while trying to negotiate these strange surroundings, but he is also struck by the opportunities that exist for people with a working class background who want to prove themselves in the Communist world. This makes him ideal prey for those with an ideological agenda, especially the KGB - and it helps that he has a few money problems at the same time. Ted is heading for danger... but no spoilers from me!

I love the way Armstrong explores the side of Cold War politics that we seldom see in spy thrillers: the exploration of class and sex in the world of political change is particularly intriguing. But more than anything it is the way she approaches her subject as a whole. Yes, we have the violence associated with any story that focuses on a political system that is based on fear and oppression, but this happens in the wings in her books. Instead she chooses to show us the more insidious, velvet glove side of the business, rather than the blunt instrument to the head - the subtle manipulation of the vulnerable and disaffected, the gentle persuasion, the way temptation can be used to direct someone and sway them to your cause. This is glorious, intelligent writing about games within games, that keeps you interested in a way that pure violence never can.

There is so much to admire in this book, just as in the first Moscow Wolves novel. Much of this can be read as a standalone story, with characters cropping up from the first book, but you do really need to have read book one to understand quite what is playing out on the Moscow stage, and where the ending takes you. Everything is beautifully set up for the next novel, and I cannot wait to read it.

The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt and The Starlings of Bucharest are available to buy now! Found out more HERE.

About the author:

Sarah Armstrong is the author of three novels, most recently The Wolves of Leninsky Prospekt. She is also the author of A Summer of Spying, a short non fiction work about her experience of jury service during the Covid-19 pandemic, authority, truth, and the surveillance we are all exposed to.

She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate creative writing with the Open University.

Sarah lives in Colchester with her husband and four children.


About Sandstone Press:

Sandstone Press is an independent publisher based in Scotland, with an international outlook. We publish thoughtful, intelligent and emotionally engaging narratives, both fiction and non-fiction, from unique voices, which engage strongly with the contemporary world.

Award-winning literature from an award winning publisher

Sandstone Press was selected as Saltire Society Scottish Publisher of the year in 2014 and 2019, the first company to win the award twice, Nibbies Small Press of the Year in 2019, and short listed as IPG Trade Independent Publisher of the Year in 2020. Sandstone Press employees and authors have won or been listed for many prizes including Saltire Society Emerging Publisher of the Year, the International Booker and Booker Prizes.

Find out more about Sandstone Press HERE.


No comments:

Post a Comment