Vodka - Hardcover

Starling, Boris

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525947701 ISBN 13: 9780525947707

Publisher: E P Dutton, 2005

Synopsis

In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse in December 1991, American banker Alice Liddell journeys to Moscow to oversee the privatization of Russia's most famous vodka distillery and finds her job challenged by the charismatic and ruthless Lev, the distillery's director and a mafia gang head. By the author of Storm. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Boris Starling's third thriller Vodka continues the run of excellence that started with Messiah. For the last decades of Soviet communism, there existed a weird symbiosis between officialdom and organised crime; Vodka offers an inventive description of what happened in the early years of democracy when that antagonistic partnership broke down. Alice Liddell could not be more of an innocent--her very name tells us that she is out of her depth, in Wonderland--and she gets lumbered with the job of privatising Moscow's largest vodka factory. Struggling with her alcoholism in a society where hard drinking is universal, Alice is caught up in the gang warfare between the distillery's Mafia boss Lev and his Chechen rivals. Meanwhile, someone is stealing children from an orphanage Lev protects and the KGB man who acts as his deputy is playing sinister games of his own. Vodka offers an intelligent and well-informed take on Russian politics—-all the more so, paradoxically, for changing some of the details and names of what happened in real life. The relationship between Lev and Alice is genuinely touching—he is the hard man who discovers there is somebody he cares about, the woman for whom falling in love is a destructive ravishment. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

Praise for Vodka
‘Suspense is cumulative, with the narrative a kaleidoscope patterned by Starling’s love affair with all things Russian and Moscow in particular’ Chris Petit, Guardian

‘A pulsating and imaginative tale of murder and mafia’ Daily Mirror

Praise for Messiah
‘A real cliffhanger’ Sunday Express

‘Fast-paced, gritty... deserves nothing but praise’
Esquire

Praise for Storm
‘A furious, compelling and enjoyable read’ Maxim

‘I’ve been pinned helplessly to every chilling page’ Loaded

About this edition

• Publisher: E P Dutton
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0525947701
• ISBN 13: 9780525947707
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 461