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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 labor 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 returned 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 realizes.
While The White Russian introduces readers to St. Petersburg's exotic and economic extremes--tenements of Dostoevskian squalidness, gilded ballet theaters 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
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Book Description Condition: Good. Signed Copy . Good dust jacket. Signed by author on title page. (fiction, mystery, historical). Seller Inventory # SA03G-00459
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. 9.29 X 6.22 X 1.57 inches; 389 pages; Signed by Author. Seller Inventory # 91502
Book Description Condition: Acceptable. Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00067551034
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Edition; First Printing. A very Nearly Fine first edition/first printing in like dust-wrapper, signed by author Tom Bradby directly on the title page; A young man named Jack moves to a small town in Maine and befriends a Russian man named Ivan. Ivan teaches Jack how to make the perfect White Russian and the two men become good friends. But when Jack starts to fall for Ivan, he fears that his friendship is too good to be true.; 8vo; Signed by Author. Seller Inventory # 26054
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First edition. Fine in fne dustwrapper. Signed by the author. Although not marked in any way, this copy is from the distinguished modern first edition collection of Bruce Kahn. Seller Inventory # 304449