DESCRIPTIONWhen a scientist experimenting on humans in a sanatorium near Moscow gives a growth serum to a dwarf oil mogul, the newly heightened businessman runs off with the experimenter’s wife, and a series of mysterious deaths and crimes commences. Fantastical and wonderfully strange, this political parable has an uncanny resonance with today’s Russia under Putin.Oleg Kashin is a famous Russian journalist and activist who, in 2010, was beaten to within an inch of his life...

This thrilling crime novel features "the best cop to come out of the Soviet Union since Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko" ( San Francisco Examiner).After a lifetime in service to the Soviet Union, police inspector Porfiry Rostnikov may have found a way out. A high-profile homicide leads him to a cache of documents packed full of incriminating Kremlin gossip, which he uses as a bargaining chip to secure exit visas for himself and his Jewish wife. But just b...

A journey into the glittering, surreal heart of twenty-first-century Russia, where even dictatorship is a reality show.**“A gripping and unsettling account.” —**Washington PostProfessional killers with the souls of artists, would-be theater directors turned Kremlin puppet masters, Hells Angels who hallucinate themselves as holy warriors: welcome to twenty-first-century Russia. It is a world erupting with new money and new power, ch...

**“Hilarious. . . . To understand Russia, read A Terrible Country.”—Time"This artful and autumnal novel, published in high summer, is a gift to those who wish to receive it."—Dwight Garner, The New York Times"Hilarious, heartbreaking . . . A Terrible Country may be one of the best books you'll read this year."—Ann Levin, Associated PressA New York Times Editors' ChoiceNamed a Best Boo...

The Arkady Renko book that started it all: the #1 bestseller Gorky Park, an espionage classic that begins the series, by Martin Cruz Smith, “the master of the international thriller” (The New York Times).It begins with a triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is brilliant, sensitive, honest, and cynical about everything except his profe...

Who is this Vladimir Putin? Who is this man who suddenly--overnight and without warning--was handed the reigns of power to one of the most complex, formidable, and volatile countries in the world? How can we trust him if we don't know him?First Person is an intimate, candid portrait of the man who holds the future of Russia in his grip. An extraordinary compilation of over 24 hours of in-depth interviews and remarkable photographs, it delves deep into Putin's KGB past and ...

In its first-ever unexpurgated edition, a sci-fi landmark that's a comic and suspenseful tour-de-force, and puts distraction in a whole new light: It's not you, it's the universe!Boris and Arkady Strugatsky were the greatest science fiction writers of the Soviet era: their books were intellectually provocative and riotously funny, full of boldly imagined scenarios and veiled—but clear—social criticism. Which may be why Definitely Maybe has never before bee...

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena—dazzling, poignant, and lyrical interwoven stories about family, sacrifice, the legacy of war, and the redemptive power of art.This stunning, exquisitely written collection introduces a cast of remarkable characters whose lives intersect in ways both life-affirming and heartbreaking. A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath L...

In this mystery introducing a hard-boiled Soviet police inspector, "Kaminsky gets Russia right" (Ed McBain).Aleksander Granovsky has dedicated his life to exposing the brutality of the Russian penal system. In two days he will be tried for the crime of smuggling essays to the West. It is a show trial, and there is no doubt he will be convicted and executed, yet before he dies, he intends to tell the truth one more time. But this is Moscow, where death is never hero...

FINALIST FOR THE PEN/HEMINGWAY PRIZE FOR DEBUT FICTIONIn Jennifer duBois’s mesmerizing and exquisitely rendered debut novel, a long-lost letter links two disparate characters, each searching for meaning against seemingly insurmountable odds. With uncommon perception and wit, duBois explores the power of memory, the depths of human courage, and the endurance of love.**NAMED BY THE NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION AS A 5 UNDER 35 AUTHOR • WINNER OF THE CALIFORNIA BOO...

***As heard on NPR’s All Things Considered*“Utterly original.” —The New York Times Book Review“Mixing bold journalism with bolder allegories, Mr. Szabłowski teaches us with witty persistence that we must desire freedom rather than simply expect it.” —Timothy Snyder, New York Times bestselling author of On Tyranny and The Road to UnfreedomAn incisive, humorous, and heartbreaking account of people in formerly Communist coun...

A Soviet cop stars in this novel of "sweaty-palmed suspense . . . Equal parts likeable characters and believable dangers" ( The Washington Post Book World).The Moscow Film Festival is in town, and the elite artists of the East and West have convened at the legendary Metropole Hotel to drink, gossip, and flirt. But the party is about to come crashing down. Four men—one American, one Japanese, and two Russians—will all be dead by morning, poisoned.To...