A book blog about Russia in English-language fiction
Christopher Reich’s third book very much merits the description of Russia-focused thriller. And a turn-of-the-century one at that, with the plot revolving around oligarchs, violence, and financial misdeeds.
Continue readingPart one of this review is here.
‘It’s always strange to be back. There is something about even flying into Russian airspace that makes me relax. I’m not weird in Russia.’
So says Faith Zanetti, the first person narrator of Neat Vodka. She feels a bit like I do when I go to Russia.
Part two of this review is here.
Neat Vodka encapsulates so much of what lies behind this Russia in fiction blog.
On the one hand it’s a fairly light frolic of a paperback novel. On the other, it brims with detail and description redolent of Russia in recent decades.
(Part one of this review is here)
Black Sun is set in a world on the turn.
It is a thriller bathed throughout in its titular saturnine radiance, emanating from RDS-220, the Tsar Bomba – to this day the most powerful explosion ever created by humankind.
(Part two of this review is here)
As a thriller, excellent. From the Russia-in-fiction perspective, first class.
Black Sun is a superior and original whodunnit set in the closed city of Arzamas-16 in October 1961, the week in which the Soviet Union tested the biggest nuclear weapon ever exploded.
Continue reading
Best-selling Russian author Natalya Aleksandrova published a thriller in 2007 with the none too subtle title Завтрак с полонием — which translates as Polonium for Breakfast.
It has a picture of Alexander Litvinenko on the cover, with the British flag in the backgound.
(Part one of this review is here)
Tom Bradby’s Secret Service goes for a straight down the line buy-in to the standard thriller-writer depiction of Putin-era Russia in the second decade of the 21st century.
(Part two of this review is here)
A quick review of what was for Russia in Fiction a quick summer read. If you fancy a spy/political thriller for the beach or the pool, this will do the trick.
Secret Service is the first in a trilogy written by Tom Bradby, a nationally known journalist and newscaster in the UK.
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