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Review
'A clever and exciting thriller ... a crime novel that's both literary and gripping, a rare treat' Daily Mail 'Brilliant ... atmospheric, ingenious and perfectly paced' Independent on Sunday 'Full of murder, political intrigue and moral dilemmas, and, everywhere, there are lies and betrayal ... Zugzwang is a thriller with ambitions. It has echoes of Graham Greene, Brian Moore and Alan Furst ... Zugzwang is an entertaining and serious work of fiction' TLS 'This classy, literate thriller is about chess, psychoanalysis, Russian skullduggery, history, mystery, romance - and more' The Times
Product Description
St Petersburg, 1914. Dr Otto Spethmann, a famous psychoanalyst, is implicated in a murder. But he is preoccupied with Avrom Rozental, the brilliant chess master who is due to play the most important competition of his life but is on the verge of a breakdown. With the city rife with speculation and alarm, Spethmann broods over his own chessboard, its pieces frozen mid-battle, and contemplates the forces - political, historical, sexual - that are holding him in their grasp.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'Zugzwang', as it tells you on the back of this book, is a position in Chess, where a player must make a move but any move he does make will result in his downfall. It seems a wonder that it's taken this long for somebody to use it a title for a thriller. It was worth the wait.
The novel is set in St Petersburg in 1914, tension is high and revolution in the air. When a journalist is found murdered, pschoanalyst Dr Otto Spethmann finds himself and his young daughter implicated in the crime. There then follows a complex unravelling of plots, counter-plots and double and triple crossings. It's marvellous stuff.
Bennet's writing is excellent, the depictions of revolutionary St Petersburg are so vivid you can almost smell the gunpowder. In addition we are treated to an intriguing Chess game that runs throughout the novel. By the end of the book, just about all of the major characters have had Zugzwang's of their own, which just adds to the tension and excitement. Predictably, there is also some romance between the Doctor and one of his patients but to be honest some of these sections must have come close to winning a 'Bad Sex' award.
Bad Sex aside, Zugzwang is a terrific read with an end that doesn't disappoint. The last paragraphs of this novel are powerful and thought provoking; they should be required reading for those in power, who hope to make the world a safer place. Historical crime and thriller junkies will love it, as will those with a passing interest in chess.
The novel is set in St Petersburg in 1914, tension is high and revolution in the air. When a journalist is found murdered, pschoanalyst Dr Otto Spethmann finds himself and his young daughter implicated in the crime. There then follows a complex unravelling of plots, counter-plots and double and triple crossings. It's marvellous stuff.
Bennet's writing is excellent, the depictions of revolutionary St Petersburg are so vivid you can almost smell the gunpowder. In addition we are treated to an intriguing Chess game that runs throughout the novel. By the end of the book, just about all of the major characters have had Zugzwang's of their own, which just adds to the tension and excitement. Predictably, there is also some romance between the Doctor and one of his patients but to be honest some of these sections must have come close to winning a 'Bad Sex' award.
Bad Sex aside, Zugzwang is a terrific read with an end that doesn't disappoint. The last paragraphs of this novel are powerful and thought provoking; they should be required reading for those in power, who hope to make the world a safer place. Historical crime and thriller junkies will love it, as will those with a passing interest in chess.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A swift-moving page turner of a thriller. Set in St Petersburg in March 1914 it is a rich mixture, expertly stirred, of psychoanalysis, of chess games, and of the political scene (the antisemitic Black Hundred, the Okhrana, the oppressed Poles in general and Polish Jews in particular, the Social Revolutionaries, Bolsheviks and Anarchists, the looming war with Germany); of different members of the security services playing different games; of murders; of blackmail; of the love of fathers for daughters who do not confide in them; of a steamy and very explicit sex-scene. The main dénouement, some way from the end, is very ingenious and makes sense of one aspect that had struck me as unlikely until that point. But, typical for this kind of novel, there are more twists and turns in the remaining pages, just to show how inventive the author can be, though they involve more leisurely discussions at moments of intense crisis than one would have thought the characters would have found time for.
The Zugzwang of the title refers to position in chess in which a player is forced to make a move he does not want to make, and of course this is the position in which several of the characters - and even Tsarist Russia - find themselves.
The Zugzwang of the title refers to position in chess in which a player is forced to make a move he does not want to make, and of course this is the position in which several of the characters - and even Tsarist Russia - find themselves.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
St Petersburg immediately before the start of WWI and only three years before the Russian Revolution is full of spies, strikes, intrigue, repression and corruption. Dr Otto Spethmann is a Freudian psychoanalyst whose clients include a chess-player who is cracking up, a Bolshevik firebrand (also cracking up) and the daughter of a sinister anti-semitic politician (definitely cracking up). Meanwhile his own daughter has become involved with an anarchist poet who's just been murdered, attracting the attention of the police, the racist politician, and sundry Bolsheviks and anarchists. As the body-count grows, he nonetheless finds time for an ongoing chess-match with his best friend - who is a famous violinist - and the progress of their end-game is aided by illustrated chess-boards through the novel.
The love-story is maybe a little weak and this is nowhere near as good as 'The Catastrophist', but I thought the pace and tension built up well and the twists were suitably surprising. But most of all, I found the setting fascinating, with the city's pre-revolutionary extremes of glamour and squalor, the Eastern European fascination with chess, and the increasing difficulty of staying neutral (as Spethmann wishes to) in the face of such a racial and social crisis. It made me want to read more about this period of Russian history. Any other good novels out there about it?
The love-story is maybe a little weak and this is nowhere near as good as 'The Catastrophist', but I thought the pace and tension built up well and the twists were suitably surprising. But most of all, I found the setting fascinating, with the city's pre-revolutionary extremes of glamour and squalor, the Eastern European fascination with chess, and the increasing difficulty of staying neutral (as Spethmann wishes to) in the face of such a racial and social crisis. It made me want to read more about this period of Russian history. Any other good novels out there about it?
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Zugswang
Having been to what was then Leningrd in the 60s, I found this book brought back memories of the city, but it was interesting to feel the difference in atmosphere created by the... Read more
Published on 5 Mar 2010 by M. Armstrong
He wraps her hair around his forearm - gulp!
Maybe it's the setting - pre-revolutionary Russia on the eve of the First World War, or maybe it's the writing style - rather episodic and rushed and with no real depth in the... Read more
Published on 9 Sep 2009 by Eileen Shaw
I won't be thanking those who led me to believe the book was good
'Clever and exciting thriller' is written on the cover, I would hardly agree. Zugzwang is very much of a let down. Read more
Published on 20 Jun 2009 by H. Lacroix
A classy thriller
The story opens on a winter's morning in March 1914, we are in St Petersburg and people are going about their daily business. One among them, newspaper editor O. Read more
Published on 3 Feb 2009 by Mick Read
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