Inspector Pekkala Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Eye of the Red Tsar | 2010 | Buy |
| The Red Coffin / Shadow Pass | 2011 | Buy |
| Archive 17 / Siberian Red | 2012 | Buy |
| The Red Moth | 2013 | Buy |
| The Beast in the Red Forest | 2013 | Buy |
| Red Icon | 2015 | Buy |
| Berlin Red | 2016 | Buy |
Non-Fiction
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Stand Before Your God | 1994 | Buy |
| The Fellowship of Ghosts | 2004 | Buy |
| Midget Submarine Commander: The Life of Godfrey Place VC | 2012 | Buy |
Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Night Over Day Over Night | 1988 | Buy |
| Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn | 1989 | Buy |
| In the Blue Light of African Dreams | 1990 | Buy |
| The Promise of Light | 1992 | Buy |
| Archangel | 1995 | Buy |
| The Story of My Disappearance | 1997 | Buy |
| The Forger | 2000 | Buy |
| Thunder God | 2004 | Buy |
| The Ice Soldier | 2006 | Buy |
| The Elegant Lie | 2019 | Buy |
Sam Eastland is the pen name of Paul Watkins, a British-American author who has published literary fiction, non-fiction, and historical thrillers. Under his real name, Watkins produced a string of well-regarded novels starting with Night Over Day Over Night in 1988, along with the memoir Stand Before Your God, which drew on his years at an English boarding school.
As Sam Eastland, he is best known for the Inspector Pekkala series, which began with Eye of the Red Tsar in 2010. The books follow Pekkala, a Finnish-born detective who once served Tsar Nicholas II and later finds himself working for Stalin in the Soviet Union. The series ran for seven novels through Berlin Red in 2016, combining period detail about Soviet-era Russia with murder mystery plots.
Watkins grew up in both the United States and England. His early literary novels, including Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn and The Promise of Light, earned praise for their atmospheric prose and were published through the 1990s. His later standalone novels like The Ice Soldier and The Elegant Lie continued to explore historical settings with a focus on personal courage under pressure.