Bradby's historical mystery, his second novel after The Master of Rain, begins in January 1917, when the bodies of a man and a woman are found on the ice of the Neva River outside the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. On the case is Sandro Ruzsky, chief investigator of the St. Petersburg police, fresh from a three-year exile in Siberia for unwittingly and indirectly causing the death of a secret police informant. He discovers that the victims were an American bank robber and an Imperial nanny, and traces them both to a circle of Yalta revolutionaries. Or are they actually double agents, financed by the czar's secret police? Ruzsky and his mistress, a renowned and glamorous ballerina, gallop across the snows between St. Petersburg and Yalta in pursuit of the killer. In the meantime, two new bodies show up. There is as much royal family intrigue as there is politics, and in a final twist, Ruzsky is stunned to find one of his own loved ones involved. The idea of setting a murder mystery on the eve of the Russian revolution is terrific, and Bradby ably captures the urban lawlessness, food shortages, unrest and Imperial decadence that characterize the period. The writing is a bit overdramatic (" 'Hello, my wounded soldier,' she said. She turned around gently and placed her moist, warm mouth against his. She arched her back, a palm against his cheek. 'No one has ever loved you before, have they, Sandro?' ")—but then, so were the times. (May 6)
