Thursday, October 20, 2016

CRIME FICTION FROM KAZAKHSTAN

Anthony Alcott-Rough beast-(an Ivan Duvakin novel)-1992
Hunter Blacke-Kazakhstan Radioactive Jane:Operatives, spies and Terrorists(Hunter Black Chronicles Book4)
Peter Cave-Invisible enemy in Kazakhstan(SAS operation)-2016
Peter Cave-Soldier M_SAS-Invisible enemy in Kaz..n-1994
Yury Dombrovsky-(not crime fiction but a classic)The keeper of antiquities-1969
Alexander M Grace-Sky Blue-1995
Ervin Allen Hill -Kazakhstan: A story of mystery and intrigue set in the oil-rich former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan-2016
Nathan Huffaker-Stranded-2015
S.M.A.Jano-From England to Kazakhstan-Loneliness, love and crime-2015
Andrei Kurkov-The good angel of death
Victor Robert Lee-Performance Anomalies-2012
Varda Leymore-To the four winds-(Not crime fiction)-2014
Kyla Maessen-Saqastan-2015
Abdi-Jamil Nurpeisov-one of the best authors of Kazakhstan.(1)Blood and sweat.(2)Twilight.1961(3)Ordeal.1964(4)Fall1970 His books are NOT crime fiction, but he is
Russell R Miller and Dr.Robert J Banis-Death on the silk road-2011
Doung & Linda Raber-Eastern colonies-2015
Joe Reidhead-Hero of the Steppe-2015
Allan Spencer -Raiding the Stans(A Central Asian Argosy)(Saga of the Woden born book 17)




While compiling crime fiction from countries of the previous USSR, for the ten articles in this blog (the articles are titled as crime fiction from  Ukraine, Moldova, etc) I discovered three  themes repeating themselves in the books.
The most frequently appearing theme is the harassment and murder of Jews in these countries in the recent past. The second is about the World Wars, Stalin's and Hitler's atrocities. The third and more recent themes are about human trafficking for sex ; the race for oil and rare minerals in these countries between the governments of countries (the index country, USA, Russia, Iran, China, etc), corporations and others and terrorism.

It was heart breaking to read about the killing of Jews from all these countries. The saddest part for me is that people all over the world, outside of this part of the world of course, have either forgotten or are unaware of the events in these parts of the world.

When I read the news daily, there is virtually no news from these countries! Being a realist, a cynic and maybe paranoid, I strongly suspect that things are probably more rotten here than in the countries which keep figuring in the news all the time.  Tell me , how often do you read about Moldova, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Latvia or Kyrgyzstan in the news? I did not even know there was a country called Moldova or Estonia until recently!
 "No news is definitely not good news" from these countries. I believe that the governments are extremely repressive here and maybe the news does not come out. I also have not bumped into  'immigrants' from these countries in Canada though I have come across a lot of people from other countries such as China, Bangladesh, Greece, Germany, England, Spain, the south American countries, etc.

To me, crime fiction is the most entertaining  way of getting to know about a country, it's people and culture. The crimes written in the stories, lets me understand the culture and behaviour of the people of the country. Authors are the best people to get to know places, you have never been to!




















                                                                                                                                       

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