Monstrum

By the time of the third murder, it was a word evoked by every shout of alarm, by every blast on a militia whistle, by every woman's scream in a district of Moscow where shouts and screams had never been uncommon. Within a week of the third murder there were the beginnings of a cult: the word appeared as elaborately worked graffiti on concrete walls; young men swaggered the streets with the word emblazoned across the back of their jackets; in the cellar discos, reckless girls wore T-shirts with the Monstrum's swollen hands engulfing their breasts. But on the streets all women are equal. At night they hurry home no longer thinking of footsteps and snatched purses. A new word --Monstrum-- has entered their vocabulary of terror. Like a rising tide of infected river water, the word washes against the shanty houses of Red Presnya, swilling through the lives of the inhabitants of the dark alleys and ruined tower blocks, leaving a scum of fear. All this was happening in Moscow in the year 2015, the year Russians had begun to think of as the New Dawn.'Brilliant...on this performance, Donald James deserves to be on the very first rank of best-selling authors'Express