CRIME FICTION FROM LITHUANIA

Stephen Collishaw-Amber -2005
Barry Flanagan-The undeclared war-2012
Barry Flanagan-Across the green border-2012
Barry Flanagan-The invisible front
Ricardas Gavelis-Vilnius poker 2009
Cule Hinder-The night doctor-2014
Icchokas Meras & Jonas Zdanys-Stalemate-2005
Trevor Scott-Gates of dawn-2016
Ruta Septeys-Between shades of grey-2012 (highly recommended book) about the evil of stalin's oppression
Ruta Septeys-Salt to the sea(not crime fiction exactly)
Antanas Sileika-underground-a novel-
K.T.Tomb-The ivory bow-2014
Ursula Wong-Amber wolf-2016

NOT read these books but Googled for crime fiction set in Lithuania and these showed up.

CRIME FICTION BELARUS

Ales Adamovich-Khatyn-2012

Theodore Odrach-Wave of terror-2008

Victor Martinovich-Paranoia

I have NOT read these. Found them when I searched for crime fiction in Belarus. Honestly, I did not even know there's a country called Belarus!

CRIME FICTION FROM AZERBAIJAN

Richard Marcinko-Echo platoon-2000
Dan Mayland-The colonel's mistake-2012
Dan Mayland-The levelling-2013
Daniel Perry-Field Pi9ece-book 2-Azerbaijan

Not read these books but found them on google

CRIME FICTION FROM TAJIKISTAN

Jane Haddam- Fighting chance - A Gregor Demarkian novel-2014 (crime fiction set in USA but Armenian characters)
Jane Haddam-Flowering Judas-A Gregor Demarkian novel-2012 (crime fiction set in USA but Armenian characters)

Jenny Barbara White-The winter thief-2010
 

CRIME FICTION FROM TURKMENISTAN

Dale Brown-Air Battle Force-2003

Not read this book but found it when I searched for 'crime fiction from Turkmenistan

CRIME FICTION FROM KYRGYZSTAN

Tom Callaghan- A killing winter-2015
Tom Callaghan-A spring betrayal-2016

I have not read these two books but found them online when searching for crime fiction from Kyrgyzstan.

CRIME FICTION FROM UZBEKISTAN

Greg Rucka- Private wars: a queen and country novel -2005
Not read this but found it on Google when I searched for crime fiction from this country.

CRIME FICTION FROM LATVIA

Sidney Iwens-How dark the heavens-1400 days of Nazi terror-(not fiction)
Boris Kacel-Hell to redemption-a memoir of the Holocaust
R.Magnusholm-House of Cain- 2015
Henning Mankell-The dogs of Riga-2001
Gertrude Schneider-journey into terror-story of the Riga ghetto-1979 (not fiction)

The above are crime fiction from Latvia and the only one I have read is Henning Mankell's the dogs of Riga which I liked as I like the protagonist i.e. Kurt Wallander.


Jewish people's suffering seems to be the  theme in majority of the Latvian books... that is what I inferred when I read the synopsis and reviews of Latvian books on the net. The Russian and German atrocities against Latvians and Jews in particular are a theme in majority of the books.

CRIME FICTION FROM UKRAINE

Alex Dryden-The blind spy-2012
Alan Furst-The Polish officer a novel-2001
Lene Kaaberbol-Death of a nightingale-2013
Garry Douglas Kilworth-The devil's own-1997
Marek Krajewski-The Minotaur's head-2012
Andrey Kurkov -The good angel of death-2009
Andrey Kurkov-Penguin lost-2004, 2011
Andrey Kurkov-The president's love -2008(NOT crime fiction)
Andrei Kurkov-The milkman in the night(more science fiction than crime I think)
Nikolia Lilin-Siberian education:Growing up in a criminal underworld-2011
Adrian Magson-Close Quarters-2015
Bernard Malamud -The fixer-1966(award winning book)
Aleksei Nikitin-Y.T-2016
Aleksei Nikitin-Istemi-2013
Herta Muller-The hunger angel-2012
Ben Pastor -Tin sky-2012
Martin Cruz Smith-Wolves eat dogs-2004

I found these books  in the Toronto Public library  and look forward to reading them. The only books I have read of these are Wolves eat dogs and the blind spy. .
 I was amazed at the number of 'great books' from Ukraine. They are not crime fiction which is what I was searching for but classics which have received rave reviews. I have not listed those books here but look forward to reading those books someday!
 I seek out crime fiction and books from communist countries. Coming from India, a truly corrupt country, there is some part of me which is curious about life is in other corrupt and 'poor' countries. I believe that life of the common man  in India is similar to life of the common man in communist countries where there's equally high amount of suppression and corruption. But, reading crime fiction from India disturbs me as it's too close home. A morbid part of my brain, craves to search and understand life of people in other equally corrupt countries. I suppose that's why I want to read these books.

CRIME FICTION FROM ESTONIA

I am compiling list of crime fiction books from various countries.
The Toronto Public Library has these 3 crime fiction books set in Estonia. 
I have NOT yet read these.


Andy Mcnab- Firewall -2000
Sofi Oksanen- Purge -2010
Peter Robinson -Watching the dark-2013

TAMARIND RICE RECIPE...my mom's recipe

I love eating hot rice with  'Hu-ni-sae-kai' 'Go-jju' especially the gojju made from newly harvested tamarind. Here is the recipe from my mom.

Ingredients:
Tamarind-about 40grams
Salt
Green chillis-4

Cooking oil: two to three table spoons
Mustard:quarter teaspoon
Peanuts: about a tablespoon(or more)
Split channa dhal- one teaspoon i.e. Split Bengal grams(drier and nuttier than the chickpeas)
Urud dhal:one teaspoon i.e. split black gram
Jeera:quarter teaspoon i.e. cumin
Turmeric powder: quarter tea spoon
Curry leaves:One sprig
Onion:One small onion or half medium size
Coriander leaves: two sprigs
Coconut:(preferably fresh ) quarter cup

Roast and grind the three i.e. (1)Black pepper:one tea spoon,(2)
Jeera: Half tea spoon and (3)Fenugreek:Quarter tea spoon

Method: 
Wash and soak the tamarind in half cup of water for about 10 minutes and squeeze out the tamarind water and save it in a bowl; or  microwave/heat  the tamarind and water for a minute and squeeze out the tamarind water into a bowl. Throw the tamarind.

Heat cooking oil in a pan and add mustard seeds, peanuts, urud dhal, split channa dhal, jeera, curry leaves, chillis, onions, turmeric powder. Then add the three roasted and ground ingredients. When the onion has changed colour, add the coconut, tamarind water, salt and take off the heat when it simmers for 5 -10 minutes. Add coriander leaves when it has cooled. 

Mix this with cooked rice and eat hot. Adding a tea spoon of ghee or butter to the rice and tamarind gojju makes it tastier. Some enjoy eating tamarind rice with a spoonful of curds. 
If the tamarind Gojju is too sour, you can fix it by adding roasted and ground peanuts or shredded coconut or a bit of jaggery.

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There is a noticible difference in taste between fresh tamarind and tamarind which is more than a year old. For people outside India, such as those in Canada and USA, you may get fresh tamarind(still in green-brown husk) in east Asian stores such as Chinese stores in some seasons, These are labelled as sweet tamarind(I don't know why they are called sweet!) and often imported from far east Asian countries. If it is dehusked, then look for tan or light brown tamarind as that is likely to be new. If the tamarind is chocolate brown or nearly black, then it's old tamarind. You can make gojju with even old tamarind but the taste is different. 

Note: All the quantities given above are approximations and you can change it.