Some readers may find the jaunty, jokey voice of 28-year-old naturalist Charlie Doig, the narrator of Fleming's turgid sequel to White Blood
(2008), at odds with his graphic accounts of atrocities in 1917 Russia. Others, perhaps fans of the James Bond books of the author's uncle, Ian Fleming, will overlook the mismatch between tone and content. Early on, Doig comments, “I'd had a beetle named after me, catalogued the passerines of Central Asia, survived typhus, had my only family members slain by the Bolsheviks—and been compelled to shoot my wife. If that isn't learning the hard way, I don't know what is.” Forced to put his wife out of her misery after a Bolshevik fiend raped and tortured her, Doig sets out on a quest for vengeance. A scheme to steal 690 tons of gold thickens the plot. The late George Macdonald Fraser did a far better job of combining a realistic historical backdrop with sex and violence (and humor) in his Flashman series. (Oct.)
