Dmitri and the One-Legged Lady

Description

The second in the delightfully witty and diverting new crime series set in Tsarist Russia from the award-winning Michael Pearce. A dreamy province of Tsarist Russia. An ambitious young lawyer of Scottish-Russian descent anxious to make his way. And the One-Legged Lady goes missing. A nasty case of kidnapping? Not quite, for the One-Legged Lady is just the popular name of one of the most important ikons in the district. Exactly how important, the sceptical Dmitri, whose task it is to track her down, comes to see. Who has taken her and for what reason? Is it someone interested in adding to his art collection? Is it, as some darkly suggest, just the monastery cashing in on its assets? Or has it something to do with a wave of popular feeling at a time of famine? The sinister Volkov, from the Tsar's Corps of Gendarmes, suspects the latter -- which means trouble for some innocent people unless Dmitri gets there first! Dmitri finds, to his surprise, that the ikon, which he had taken merely as an irrelevant relic from the past, raises some awkward issues about the present and that the One-Legged Lady is very much alive and kicking. Dmitri and the One-Legged Lady is the second novel in the witty and fascinating new series by Michael Pearce which pits the wily and determined Dmitri Kameron against the oppressive forces of the Tsarist regime.

Michael Pearce grew up in the (then) Anglo-Egyptian Sudan among the various tensions he draws on for his award-winning Mamur Zapt series. He returned there to teach, and retains a human rights interest in the area. In between whiles his career has followed the standard academic rake's progress from teaching to writing to editing to administration. He finds international politics a pallid imitation of academic ones. He lives in London. He is now a full-time writer. He was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's prestigious Last Laugh Award for funniest crime novel of the year for the 'Mamur Zapt and the Spoils of Egypt'. Michael Pearce is also the author of the crime novels featuring Dmitri Kameron, set in Tsarist Russia of the 1890s.

'Pearce takes apart ancient history and reassembles it with beguiling wit and colour' Sunday Times 'Ingeniously imagined and zestfully written' Literary Review 'A wily protagonist and racing narrative combine for perfect entertainment' Time Out