New Paperback Release: Russian Winter

A beautiful and engaging novel, Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay will sweep you up in the tragedies of life in Soviet Russia and have you hoping and praying for present-day redemption. There are many narratives in this novel including those of the young Nina Revskaya, ballerina at the Bolshoi and also her ailing modern self, now residing in Boston. There is also Grigoiri Solodin, a professor who was adopted as a newborn in Russia and who believes he has traced his parentage to Nina through the few small artifacts he inherited. And finally there is Drew Brooks, a woman who works at the auction house where Nina Revskaya is selling her famous jewelry collection. Though the lives of these people seem to have little in common, we see that there are common human threads that run through each of their lives.

I'll admit to having lost track of time and I started this book a bit late but it wasn't a chore at all to read this almost-500-page book over the course of three days. I got caught up in Nina's story and couldn't wait to find out what had happened to cause her defection from the Soviet Union and to learn if Grigori was really her son. Some readers might be a bit put off at first by the switching of tenses in the novel (the past story is written in the present tense) but after a while it simply becomes the natural rhythm of the book. There were a few slightly redundant parts and it took me some time to care about Grigori and Drew's stories but it all came together nicely by the end. As for Nina, I fell in love with her, as did so many others, and her story slowly broke my heart.

As I was reading this novel, I realized that though I frequently read novels set in Russia, they are never set in this time period of Stalin and Communism. I enjoyed this journey and appreciated the depth of Kalotay's research. The artforms that she chose to include in the story--ballet, music and poetry--are all well-incorporated as well and make this an epic sort of novel.

Coveting the jewels,
K

This novel is currently on a TLC Book Tour. You can read other reviews at the following sites:

Library Queue
Luxury Reading
nomadreader
A Few More Pages

Other reviews will be linked up at the tour page during the coming month.

Support our site and buy Russian Winter on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received a finished copy for review.

New Release: A Razor Wrapped in Silk

I don't think I've made any secret of the fact that I'm a big fan of R.N. Morris' Russian historical mystery novels.  I read his first Porfiry Petrovich book, The Gentle Axe (also known as A Gentle Axe), before I started blogging but you can read my thoughts on the second, A Vengeful Longing, here.  While in the first book, we suffered through a bleak winter in St. Petersburg and in the second we choked through the unbearable summer, this new novel, A Razor Wrapped in Silk, leads us through a foggy autumn in the city of the Tsar.

Porfiry Petrovich, the famed detective from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, is an investigating magistrate who is well known for his unique mannerisms and unparalleled success in solving crimes.  In this outing, he is working on two seemingly unrelated crimes -- the disappearance of child factory workers and the murder of a society mistress.  Porfiry is determined to solve the crimes in his own way despite the interference of the special police, an infiltrator in his home, a surly companion and even the wishes of the Tsar himself.

I was most impressed while reading this novel by the way that it explored Porfiry's aging mind and body.  Unlike Agatha Christie's never-wavering Poirot, Porfiry begins to feel the pressures of age.  Failing eyesight, achy bones and a wandering mind are just a few of the things he believes are starting to affect his work.  And yet, he remains brilliant and professional and his handling of the cases presented to him is masterful.  His relationship with his young assistant, Pavel Pavlovich, is also tested in a touching and believable way.  Pavel is losing faith in his aging mentor and yet still sees him as a virile competitor when it comes to the affections of a young woman.  I almost felt the mysteries to be a subplot to the much more interesting character studies that were happening in this novel.  Morris' prose is a pleasure to read and I am disappointed that his next novel will not be (correction follows) there will only be one more novel in this series.  However, I am hoping that his next project is the beginning of something just as brilliant.

Searching through the fog,
K


Support our site and buy A Razor Wrapped in Silk on Amazon or find it at your local library.  We received a copy for review from the author.

Rerun Tuesday: The Winter Queen

K is traveling this week and so we will be revisiting some posts from the early days of WeBeReading ... this is the first in a fantastic series.

"Chapter One -- in which an account is rendered of a certain cynical escapade". I'll admit that is not the first sentence of The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin. It's the first chapter heading -- but isn't it amazing? You don't even have to get past the chapter title to experience the fantastic writing of this book.

After giving up on The Mill on The Floss for now, I decided to go back and read The Winter Queen for a second time. It had been a while since I first read it (Amazon says I bought it in February 2005) which usually means that I can't remember much about it. It turned out that I remembered most of it but it was still throughly enjoyable this time through. Akunin is a fantastic writer and I also give credit to the translator of this book, Andrew Bromfield. He does an admirable job of translating this book from its native Russian.

The main character in The Winter Queen is a 20 year old clerk in the Moscow department of detectives in 1876. Erast Fandorin begins his adventure when he is assigned some investigatory work into the mildly suspicious suicide of a college student. This small and seemingly simple case leads Fandorin straight into the middle of a worldwide conspiracy. His life is constantly in danger but his intelligence and self-control help him to perserve in the most treacherous of situations.

This book was mentioned in my previous post about the best detectives around the world and it definitely deserves its place on the list. There are eleven books so far in the Russian series, 5 of which have been translated into English.

Moving on to another mystery,
K


Buy The Winter Queen on Amazon or find it at your local library.

"The square onto which the windows of the district court looked out was already almost completely empty by this hour in the early evening."

Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk is the second book translated to English in Boris Akunin's series about a young nun who is incredibly adept at gymnastics and solving crimes. I read the first book in the series, Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog, just over a year ago and really enjoyed it. This book had many of the same features that attracted me to the first novel.

The setting of this series of mysteries is rural Russia, I believe in the early 1900s because this second book (which takes place directly after the first) references the work of Madame Curie which was first published in 1898. The mysteries in both of these books are very well formed and not at all predictable. In this current novel, a spectral "black monk" is appearing at a hermitage in their district, provoking hysteria and even death. After unsucessful investigations by three other people, Sister Pelagia eventually takes it on herself to travel to this monastery and solve the mystery. She is quite amusing in that, in both books, she takes on the persona of a Muscovite widow and dresses in the latest fashions, pretending to be a layperson. In this one she also adds a second disguise -- a young male monk.

Some of the more interesting parts of these books are not in the narratives at all but in the religious discussions between Sister Pelagia and her mentor, Bishop Mitrofanii. It is very intriguing to get a glimpse of Russian Orthodoxy about 100 years ago. More in the first book than this second one, there is quite a bit of information about rural political structure in Russia which is also interesting. These books are fantastic as both historical studies and mysteries. I again must complement Akunin's English translator, Andrew Bromfield, as I have ready many a poor translation from Russian.

The third book in the series, Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel, comes out in August.

Loving a dark Russian mystery,
K


Buy Sister Pelagia and the Black Monk on Amazon or find it at your local library.

"Nadya? I wouldn't have recognized her."

When I agreed to a review copy of Alla Avilova's Revelation of Fire, I didn't realize that the basic plot was so similar to another book I recently read, People of the Book. This is also the tale of an ancient book and we learn of its history by hearing the stories of the hands through which the book passed. Luckily, the similarities ended there and this story was fresh and different.

The main characters of the story are a Dutch literature specialist and a Russian historian/librarian who find that a manuscript is missing from a Russian archive. They set about tracing it, both in modern times and in the past. The book, entitled "Revelation of Fire" is a Russian mystical text that originated in a monastery at the end of a line of mystical monks called Cenergites. The origins of the first Cenergite, Father Eularios, remain a mystery but the path of the book is actually followed from the sixteenth century to modern times.

This book was difficult to begin as the translation from Russian didn't always have the best flow or syntax. However, once I got going, the translation either got better or I stopped noticing. The mysticism and spiritualism in the book are based on many Eastern philosophies and are simple to understand and were thought-provoking. The analysis of solitude was quite interesting. The book also gives some brief insight into Russian history, relative to the Orthodox church, but this wasn't a main focus.

Dedicated to discovering my own philosophy,
K


Buy Revelation of Fire on Amazon or find it at your local library.

"Raisa Ivanovna Meyer was sitting on the veranda of a rented dacha, listening to distant music ..."

I had been eagerly waiting to read A Vengeful Longing, the sequel to R.N. Morris' first novel, The Gentle Axe. This was my final book for the 2nds Challenge -- reading authors by whom you have only read one book before. I cheated a bit, seeing as how I would have read this one anyway. It is a fantastic mystery series in an important time in Russian history.
The detective is Porfiry Petrovich, an investigator transplanted from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. He is a seasoned veteran and is known for his original methods, including the use of a rudimentary version of criminal psychology. He is joined in this story by a protege, a young man named Pavel Pavlovich Virginsky, whom we met in the first story when he was the suspect in a murder. In this story we follow a series of seemingly unrelated murders and we also witness the initiation of Pavel Pavlovich into his new profession. As in Morris' first book -- which thankfully didn't have any of the failings of other authors' first books -- the descriptions of Czarist Russia are vivid and inviting, sometimes in a revolting sort of way. It is no surprise that Porfiry must follow leads into some of the seamiest areas of St. Petersburg and, as we journey with him, one can almost smell the foul odors, see the crumbling buildings and witness the sad, vacant looks of those who have given up expecting anything from life.

This is a great mystery that offers some clues along the way so that the reader can participate in the investigation. Of course, Porfiry is methodical and still brilliant so most of the pleasure of the book is in reading how he chooses to go about the solving of the crimes. Morris is a very good writer and I hope that in addition to continuing this series, that he will try his hand at some other subjects.

Waiting for book three,
K


Buy A Vengeful Longing: A Novel (St. Petersburg Mysteries) on Amazon or find it at your local library.

"Chapter One -- in which an account is rendered of a certain cynical escapade"

I'll admit that is not the first sentence of The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin. It's the first chapter heading -- but isn't it amazing? You don't even have to get past the chapter title to experience the fantastic writing of this book.

After giving up on The Mill on The Floss for now, I decided to go back and read The Winter Queen for a second time. It had been a while since I first read it (Amazon says I bought it in February 2005) which usually means that I can't remember much about it. It turned out that I remembered most of it but it was still throughly enjoyable this time through. Akunin is a fantastic writer and I also give credit to the translator of this book, Andrew Bromfield. He does an admirable job of translating this book from its native Russian.

The main character in The Winter Queen is a 20 year old clerk in the Moscow department of detectives in 1876. Erast Fandorin begins his adventure when he is assigned some investigatory work into the mildly suspicious suicide of a college student. This small and seemingly simple case leads Fandorin straight into the middle of a worldwide conspiracy. His life is constantly in danger but his intelligence and self-control help him to perserve in the most treacherous of situations.

This book was mentioned in my previous post about the best detectives around the world and it definitely deserves its place on the list. There are eleven books so far in the Russian series, 5 of which have been translated into English. I am going to re-read the rest of the series over the next couple of months so I promise to write more about this high-quality series again.

Moving on to another mystery,
K


Buy The Winter Queen on Amazon or find it at your local library.