“What’s with the Armenian?” “We picked him up the other night. His file’s lying over there on the desk.” The ginger-haired man in a flannel sports jacket ambles bow-legged over…

Kyiv, Podil District: A quickly dimming winter light from the first-floor street-facing window directly behind him fades across Jack Step’s gray desk, as the artificial lighting inside the agency’s offices…

The corner of Yarsoslavska and Kostyantynivska streets is lit up like a theater stage. And there’s a Welsh Losser impersonator out in front of the Kyiv Commix Cafe. His round…

There’s a long but low-built block of flats smoldering beneath an overcast November sky. Its charred face, pelted by freezing rain, its insides gutted. Residents in wrinkled tracksuits and dingy sleeveless…

It is half-past-three in the morning, and the Older Still Well-Built Man is leant back in his brown leather swivel chair at the offices of Kyiv Proper Detective Agency. He’s…