Pekkala: He was the Romanovs’ most trusted investigator. Now he’s Stalin’s greatest fear.   He operates in the shadows of one of history’s most notorious regimes. He seeks the truth in a nation where finding it can mean death€”or worse. His name his Inspector Pekkala, and this time he’s taking on a case with implications far deadlier than anything he can imagine: a shattering revelation that was never meant to be unearthed. Its official name is T-34, and this massive and mysterious new weapon is being developed in total secrecy in the Russian countryside, a thirty-ton killing machine. Its inventor, Colonel Rolan Nagorski, is a rogue genius whose macabre death is considered an accident only by the innocent. And Josef Stalin is no innocent. Suspecting assassins everywhere, he brings in his best€”if least obedient€”detective to solve a murder that’s tantamount to treason. Answerable to no one, Pekkala has th Praise for Sam Eastland’s Eye of the Red Tsar   “Highly imaginative . . . History mixes with fiction in an exciting story.”— USA Today   “A fantastic premise, frenetic action sequences and a stellar setting . . .  all set apart this debut novel . . . What elevates this Russian period thriller . . . is its mad, brilliant hero.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)   “A riveting historical thriller with a fascinating protagonist . . . a smart, assured, impeccably researched page-turner.”—David Liss, author of The Devil’s Company   “A triumph! With a canny eye for detail, Eastland re-creates the tragedy of the Romanov dynasty in this intelligent and relentless thriller.”—David Hewson, author of City of Fear “Gripping and memorable. . . . Fans of Russian thrillers (Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44, Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park, and David Benioff’s City of Thieves ) will want this.”— Library Journal   “Particularly satisfying . . . Pekkala is a likeable and believable protagonist, and this is a highly promising debut.” — Daily Mail (U.K.)   “A terrific debut . . . Eastland’s weaving of fact and fiction, of real and invented characters, is brilliantly achieved, and Pekkala makes an unusual, captivating hero.”— The Times (U.K.) Sam Eastland is the author of Eye of the Red Tsar . He is the grandson of a London Police detective who served in Scotland Yard’s famous “Ghost Squad” during the 1940s. He lives in the United States and Great Britain and is currently working on his next novel. As the motorcycle crested the hill, sunlight winked off the goggles of the rider. Against the chill of early spring, he wore a double-breasted leather coat and a leather flying cap which buckled under his chin. He had been on the road for three days, stopping only to buy fuel along the way. His saddlebags were filled with tins of food he'd brought from home. At night, he did not stay in any town, but wheeled his motorcycle in among the trees. It was a new machine, a Zundapp K500, with a pressed-steel frame and girder forks. Normally he could never have afforded it, but this trip alone would pay for everything, and more besides. He thought about that as he sat there alone in the woods, eating cold soup from a can. Before camouflaging the motorcycle with fallen branches, he wiped the dust from its sprung leather seat and the large teardrop-shaped fuel tank. He spat on every scratch he found and rubbed it with his sleeve. The man slept on the ground, wrapped in an oilcloth sheet, without the comfort of a fire or even a cigarette. The smell of smoke might give away his location, and he could not afford to take the risk. Sometimes, he was awakened by the rumble of Polish Army trucks passing by on the road. None of them stopped. Once he heard a crashing in among the trees. He drew a revolver from his coat and sat up just as a stag passed a few paces away, barely visible, as if the shadows themselves had come to life. For the rest of the night, the man did not sleep. Tormented by childhood nightmares of human shapes with antlers sprouting from their heads, he wanted only to be gone from this country. Ever since he crossed the German border into Poland, he had been afraid, although no one who saw him would ever have realized it. This was not the first time he had been on such a journey, and he knew from experience that his fear would not leave him until he was back among his own people again. On the third day, he crossed into the Soviet Union at a lonely border checkpoint manned by one Polish soldier and one Russian soldier, neither of whom could speak the other's language. Both men came out to admire his motorcycle. "Zundapp," they crooned softly, as if saying the name of a loved one, and the man gritted his teeth while they ran their hands over the chrome. A few minutes after leaving the checkpoint, he pulled over to the side of the road and raised the goggles to his forehead, revealing two pale moons of skin where the road dust had not settled on his face. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he looked out over th