The White Russian

This is a thriller, whodunnit and political allegory all rolled into one - and given that the author is Tom Bradby, Asia correspondent for ITN, the mix comes as no surprise. Bradby has written three previous novels, all of them combining similar ingredients and breaking new ground in genre-writing. The approach has proved highly popular and there are no disappointments here. This time the setting is St Petersburg in the bitter winter of 1917. Revolution is about to explode while the Tsar and his Imperial blue-bloods continue gorging and dining to excess. The Romanovs might be unaware of how perilous the situation is, but their secret police aren't. Like a bunch of jackals they are desperate to steer clear of trouble but happy to pick over the carcasses of those they will betray to the masses. Of course there is a hero in this morass. He takes the form of Sandro Ruzsky, chief investigator of the city police. Ruzsky has just returned from a four-year exile in Siberia, his penalty for pursuing a case his superiors wanted him to drop. Now, back on his home patch and with normal life disintegrating by the day, he sets about investigating the murders of a young couple whose bodies were found on the frozen River Neva. The girl was a nanny at the Imperial Palace, the man an American. The brutality of their deaths shadows the political turmoil going on in the city, but what appear to be simply two more killings among many soon take on a bizarre aspect. Ruzsky finds he is forced to confront his own past, and the love affair he tried to forget. Bradby has written an intriguing tale and given it a menacing atmosphere that marks it out as his best novel to date. (Kirkus UK)