The White Russian

Description

The new thriller from the acclaimed author of Shadow Dancer, The Sleep of the Dead and The Master of Rain. St Petersburg 1917. The capital of the glittering Empire of the Tsars and a city on the brink of revolution where the jackals of the Secret Police intrigue for their own survival as their aristocratic masters indulge in one last, desperate round of hedonism. For Sandro Ruzsky, Chief Investigator of the city police, even this decaying world provides the opportunity for a new beginning. Banished to Siberia for four years for pursuing a case his superiors would rather he'd quietly buried, Ruzsky finds himself investigating the murders of a young couple out on the ice of the frozen river Neva. The dead girl was a nanny at the Imperial Palace, the man an American from Chicago and, if the brutality of their deaths seems an allegory for the times, Ruzsky finds that, at every turn, the investigation leads dangerously close to home. At the heart of the case, lies Maria, the beautiful ballerina Ruzsky once loved and lost. But is she a willing participant in what appears to be a dangerous conspiracy or likely to be it's next, perhaps last, victim? In a city at war with itself, and pitted against a ruthless murderer who relishes taunting him, Ruzsky finds himself at last face to face with his own past as he fights to save everything he cares for, before the world into which he was born goes up in flames.

TOM BRADBY is a novelist, screenwriter and journalist. He has written nine previous novels, including top-ten bestselling Secret Service, and its two sequels, Double Agent and Triple Cross. The Master of Rain was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Steel Dagger for Thriller of the Year, and both The White Russian and The God of Chaos for the CWA Historical Crime Novel of the Year. He adapted his first novel, Shadow Dancer, into a film, the script for which was nominated for Screenplay of the Year in the Evening Standard Film Awards. As a broadcaster, he is best known as the current Anchor of ITV's News at Ten. In his first year in the job he was named Network Presenter of the Year by the Royal Television Society. He has been with ITN for thirty years and was successively Ireland Correspondent, Political Correspondent, Asia Correspondent (during which time he was shot and seriously injured whilst Covering a riot in Jakarta), Royal Correspondent, UK Editor and Political Editor- a job he held for a decade - before being made the Anchor of News at Ten in 2015.

'Unfailingly evocative...Reminiscent of Gorky Park' * The Times * 'Intrigue of the highest order...sad, atmospheric and richly entertaining' * Washington Post *