Carol Adlam is a writer and artist and Associate Professor in Illustration at Nottingham Trent University. She is a World Illustration Awards winner (2018; shortlisted 2016, 2015). In 2020 she was writer-in-residence at the University of St Andrews in 2020 and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge in 2021. She holds a PhD in Russian literature.

 

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The Russian Detective

(Penguin/Jonathan Cape, 2024)

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“A quirky mash-up of Tsarist nostalgia and postmodern detective noir”

- Times Literary Supplement

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“Takes you back to the deep pleasures of childhood reading. It could not be more rich or more beautiful if it tried … there’s nothing she cannot do with her pen and her paintbrush”

- Rachel Cooke, The Observer / The Guardian 

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“Eat Your Heart out, Dostoevsky!”

- Val McDermid, Queen of Crime

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“Grin-inducingly clever... A thrilling tour de force”

- Comics Laureate Stephen Holland

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"Truly incredible… a gorgeous, intricate work of art with a really gripping and touching story"

- Helen Cross, My Summer of Love

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Guardian Graphic Novel of the Month, May 2024; Page 45 Graphic Novel of the Month, May 2024

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In this stunning reimagining of a nineteenth-century Russian crime thriller from the world of Dostoevsky, Carol Adlam presents Charlie Fox, stunt journalist, magician, liar and thief, who reluctantly returns to her hometown of Nowheregrad to investigate the murder of Elena Ruslanova, daughter of a fabulously wealthy glass manufacturer.

In Nowheregrad Charlie finds herself caught up in a multi-layered story that is told through the richly varied visual devices of the time. With the unwitting assistance of her lover, Netochka, Charlie unravels the mystery of the Bobrov family, only to face the truth about herself.

Exquisitely drawn and compellingly told, Adlam's complex, elegant narrative brings to life the lost legacies of early crime fiction and the first women journalists and detectives.

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