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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk
It turns out that the dead woman on the ice used to work as a nanny to Tsar Nicholas II's children until she was dismissed for stealing unspecified property. Her male companion, a Chicago criminal and labour agitator, was knifed 17 times and had in his coat pocket a roll of banknotes marked with tiny ink dots. A code of some sort? If so, who was he communicating with secretly, and to what end? Although Ruzsky, the black sheep son of an aristocratic family, just back from a three-year Siberian banishment, finds his investigation hampered by the tsar's secret police, he slowly unpeels the layers of a conspiracy that involves not merely homicide, but also avarice, politics and long-sought vengeance. The stability of Russia's monarchy may depend on Ruzsky's success in this case, as may the investigator's hesitant relationship with a star ballerina, whose cloaked past makes her a far more intriguing and more deadly companion than Ruzsky realises.
While The White Russian introduces readers to St Petersburg's exotic and economic extremes--tenements of Dostoevskian squalidness, gilded ballet theatres full of garrulous royalty--it is a rather less ambitiously atmospheric story than Bradby's previous novel, 2002's The Master of Rain. Yet it boasts a similarly tumbling pace, emotionally torn and credible characters (including a "neurotic and hysterical" Tsarina Alexandra) and twists and dubious allegiances enough to leave readers wondering at Ruzsky's solution until the closing pages. At once a chilling crime yarn and a cautionary tale about the sometimes painful exigencies of love, The White Russian is a literary cocktail with a decided kick. --J. Kingston Pierce, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
""Exotic Shanghai of 1926...has been enterprisingly summoned by Mr. Bradby. In this ambitious, atmospheric crime novel...a city on the brink is recreated with impressive diligence. The physical details are strong and the politics appropriately ominous. "Chinatown" via "Casablanca,""
-"New York Times
""Tom Bradby's expert evocation of the hothouse atmosphere of Twenties Shanghai makes an exotic backdrop to a crackling murder mystery. This is an immensely atmostpheric, gripping detective story with just the right mixture of exoticism, violence, and romance."
-"The Times "(London)
"Tense and rather lush, expertly working the wonderful setting without overplaying the cultural clash: eerily well suited to these parlous times."
-Kirkus Reviews
"Rich, dark, atmospheric, this fine novel captures time and place perfectly... It's a great crime story that ends up in a place you won't predict ... and a great love story that you desperately hope "will" end up in the place you predict."
-Lee Child, bestselling author of "Without Fail
"
"As we turn the pages and stray deeper into Tom Bradby's decadent, strangely perfumed world, we grow aware that something sinister lies just beyond the reach of our vision, something we cannot see but that we nevertheless know is there. "The Master of Rain" is an astonishing, haunting, masterful debut."
-Lincoln Child, bestselling author of "Utopia
""Beneath the surface of this clever book, a thrilling yarn of murder and mayhem, we find a wise, richly layered, and utterly convincing portrait of what was the most evil and fatally fascinating of all the modern world's cities. No one has managed tobring Shanghai so alive in all its ghastly splendor."
-Simon Winchester, author of "The Professor and the Madman
"
"From the Hardcover edition."
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Customer Reviews
As the sun rises on New Year's day two bodies are found on the frozen river Neva within sight of the Imperial Palace. One man and a young woman have been brutally murdered. Sandro Ruzsky, St. Petersburg's chief police investigator is called to the scene. Sandro is the scion of a Russian noble, Nicolas Ruzsky, the Tsar's Deputy Finance Minister. Sandro's decision to join the police rather than take up the military career embarked upon by his father and his earlier ancestors has caused irreparable harm to the father/son relationship. The rift is further heightened by the blame Nicolas has always placed on Sandro for the death by drowning of Sandro's youngest brother.
It is Sandro's first day back on the job after a three-year exile/posting to Siberia courtesy of the Okhrana, the Tsar's secret police (the KGB of its day). Sandro's exile resulted in the break up of his marriage to his wife Irina who left Siberia to take up on affair with an aging, corpulent Grand Duke. Sandro is tired more than a bit tired, drunk, and hung-over as he steps onto the ice. Sandro is accompanied by his assistant Pavel. Sandro's exile was caused in no small part by Pavel's actions but Sandro took all the blame onto himself on the theory that Pavel, a person of lesser birth, would have suffered a fate worse than Sandro's. This action of course leaves Pavel devoted to Sandro.
These two murders are followed in rapid succession by other, equally brutal murders. It is Sandro's job to solve the murders which may or may not involve members of the Royal family. Sandro's investigation is impeded at every step of the way by the Okhrana. Nothing is quite what it seems and no one is quite who they seem. The story and Sandro's investigation takes him across Russia to his family's summer home and then on to the Crimea. As events proceed Sandro rediscover the love of his life and this tortured relationship wends its way through the story and forms an emotional cornerstone of the book that matches the examination of Sandro's relationship with his father.
It would be unfair to reveal any more of the story line. One of White Russian's strength is the development of the plot and his characters. A little bit is revealed on each page. It is fair to say that this book is more than a simply murder mystery. Bradby's characters, particularly those of Sandro and his father evoke a time and place where honor in the face of adversity counted more than either convenience or love. It is at once the cause and resolution of the rift between father and son. In a fast paced manner Bradby conveys with dexterity the feel of a city lost in a fog of war and insurrection. Everyone sees the revolution coming but like an out-of-control train no one seems willing or able to do anything about it.
Bradby takes us into the minds of the entrenched nobility, striking workers, and revolutionary students. One can feel the revolution approaching as the book reaches its climactic moments. It is the inevitability of the coming revolutions that serves as the conceptual underpinning of both the murders and the resolution of the story.
This was an enjoyable book.
In some respects the main character reminds me of Renko out of the Martin Cruz Smith books e.g. Gorky Park - the Russians are just so stoical.
The ending was not quite as good as Ihoped but only because I was hoping the book would go on for ever. I get the feeling that a follow up is definitely required. Buy this book - you will not be disappointed.
I guessed the 'villains' well before the end and found myself considering turning to the last chapter just to get the book finished. I will give Tom Bradby a miss for a while.
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