Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eye of the Red Tsar | 2010 | Sam Eastland / Paul Watkins | Buy |
| 2 | The Red Coffin / Shadow Pass | 2011 | Sam Eastland / Paul Watkins | Buy |
| 3 | Archive 17 / Siberian Red | 2012 | Sam Eastland / Paul Watkins | Buy |
| 4 | The Red Moth | 2013 | Sam Eastland / Paul Watkins | Buy |
| 5 | The Beast in the Red Forest | 2013 | Sam Eastland / Paul Watkins | Buy |
| 6 | Red Icon | 2015 | Sam Eastland / Paul Watkins | Buy |
| 7 | Berlin Red | 2016 | Sam Eastland / Paul Watkins | Buy |
The Inspector Pekkala series by Sam Eastland (pen name of Paul Watkins) is set in the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s. Pekkala, once known as the Emerald Eye for the emerald badge of office he carried as the Tsar’s special investigator, is dragged from a Siberian labor camp to serve Stalin as a detective. Each novel sends him into a different corner of Soviet society and history, from secret military projects to wartime espionage.
The series began with Eye of the Red Tsar in 2010 and concluded with Berlin Red in 2016. Throughout the seven books, Eastland balances detective fiction with rich historical detail, drawing on real events like the execution of the Romanov family, Soviet weapons programs, and the Eastern Front of World War II. Pekkala is a man caught between two eras, loyal to a dead tsar while serving the regime that destroyed everything he knew.