The Lion and Cinnamon

Yuri Buyda is the author of novels “The Thief, the Spy and the Murderer,” “The Gift of Speech,” and “The Fifth Kingdom,” a collection of stories “The Prussian Bride,” and other books published in Russia, France, the UK, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Norway. He is a laureate of the “Big Book” award.

The novel “The Lion and Cinnamon” is an elegant and playful phantasmagoria: in a rapid dance, it carries the reader through the streets of Moscow, Paris, Rome, and the north of Italy. It is about what you can find at night in the Tsaritsyno park or in a deserted military warehouse in the industrial zone near the MKAD, about a fight with a demon in the guise of a blazing orangutan atop Montmartre, and about traces of an ancient battle of the Cimmerian Legion in Luxembourg Gardens. It’s also about investigating a mysterious disappearance of children around Verona, and about medieval sects; about studying grimoires and manuscripts in the secret archive of the Vatican Library; and about a floating glass church in the mountains near Lake Garda…

…But most importantly, it’s about the flawless knowledge: entering a deal with the devil is worth it only for a woman.

“Freedom is immoral—freedom is the prey of shameless people. The world opens to those who dare to take the first step—but belongs only to those who make the second.”

© Design. LLC “AST Publishing House”, 2021 [/spoiler]