Black Sun by Owen Matthews

This was my book this evening, at home. It actually had about as many laugh-out-loud moments for me as the Ring Lardner did, but some large portion of that was probably humor of a distinctly gallows color. This is basically a mystery novel set in Soviet Russia, with a main character who's an investigator for the KGB. There's all kinds of tension here between the government's secrets and the characters' secrets, the main has a strong tendency toward self-destruction. The whole novel is told in tight-third from that main's POV and it's possible he's not an entirely reliable narrator, but if I were going to catetorize him on that I'd say he's somehow more naif than he is madman or liar (though it's possible he's lying to himself at least as much as he is to anyone else. The author knows Russia, he has family and professional ties there, and it shows.  I enjoyed this greatly.