January 1917—With St. Petersburg on the brink of revolution, Sandro Ruzsky, the city’s chief police investigator, returns from exile in Siberia only to be assigned a grisly case: the bodies of a young couple found on the ice of the frozen River Neva, just outside the Tsar’s Winter Palace. Ruzsky’s investigation leads him dangerously close to the royal family and to the woman he loves, and he finds himself confronting both a ruthless killer and the ghosts of his past as he fights desperately to save all that he cares for. With meticulous research and narrative skill Tom Bradby brilliantly re-creates the gilded salons and squalid tenements of St. Petersburg in the last days of the tsars. Evocative and thrilling, The White Russian is a tumultuous story of murder and betrayal in a city at the crossroads of history. “A cunning story of love, death and betrayal.” --Chicago Tribune “Atmospheric and richly entertaining. . . . Political intrigue of the highest order.” –The Washington Post “A stretch limo of a book, needing every inch of interior space to incorporate its grand themes of political intrigue, social unrest and romantic betrayal.” –The News & Observer “Imperial Russia and the story of the doomed royal family continue to fascinate…. The tale of the Romanovs has always been stranger than fiction. Still, the small details that Bradby includes…lend a tantalizing authenticity to his fictional sidebar to one of the great stories of the twentieth century.” –Orlando Sentinel “Brilliant. . . . St. Petersburg . . . illuminates The White Russian . . . . Rusky is a character to remember. . . . A complex mystery.”— Columbus Dispatch “Brady fills The White Russian with great period detail and fits his intrigues snugly within the complicated and dangerous politics of its time. . . . Rusky and Maria’s doomed love . . . Rusky’s attempt to reconnect with his young son, and his father’s clumsy move toward reconciliation give The White Russian a poignancy and urgency that go perfectly with its portrait of a nation on the edge of the abyss.” — The Flint Journal “Exceptionally rich. . . . The White Russian is a masterful creation of suspense set in deadly times.” — The Manhattan Mercury (Kansas) January 1917 With St. Petersburg on the brink of revolution, Sandro Ruzsky, the city s chief police investigator, returns from exile in Siberia only to be assigned a grisly case: the bodies of a young couple found on the ice of the frozen River Neva, just outside the Tsar s Winter Palace. Ruzsky s investigation leads him dangerously close to the royal family and to the woman he loves, and he finds himself confronting both a ruthless killer and the ghosts of his past as he fights desperately to save all that he cares for. With meticulous research and narrative skill Tom Bradby brilliantly re-creates the gilded salons and squalid tenements of St. Petersburg in the last days of the tsars. Evocative and thrilling, The White Russian is a tumultuous story of murder and betrayal in a city at the crossroads of history. January 1917--With St. Petersburg on the brink of revolution, Sandro Ruzsky, the city's chief police investigator, returns from exile in Siberia only to be assigned a grisly case: the bodies of a young couple found on the ice of the frozen River Neva, just outside the Tsar's Winter Palace. Ruzsky's investigation leads him dangerously close to the royal family and to the woman he loves, and he finds himself confronting both a ruthless killer and the ghosts of his past as he fights desperately to save all that he cares for. With meticulous research and narrative skill" Tom Bradby" brilliantly re-creates the gilded salons and squalid tenements of St. Petersburg in the last days of the tsars. Evocative and thrilling, The White Russian" is a tumultuous story of murder and betrayal in a city at the crossroads of history. Tom Bradby is the royal correspondent for the British television network ITN. He has spent the last nine years covering British and American politics as well as conflicts in China, Ireland, Kosovo, and Indonesia. He now lives in London with his wife and three children. 1 The arctic wind sliced through Ruzsky's thin woolen overcoat. His boots were damp and his toes numb with cold, but he was oblivious to everything except the frozen expanse before him. All he could see was ice. Ruzsky's heart was beating fast. He tried to place a foot on the ice, before shifting his weight back to the step. He looked down at his boots, but his vision was blurred. He fought to control his breathing. "Christ," he whispered. His first day back from exile and it would have to begin like this. The constables were ahead of him, in the center of the frozen river Neva, illuminated by a ring of torches. The snowfall had tapered off through the night and the sky was now clear. The narrow spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral on the far side of the river was bathed in moonlight. There was a sudden flurry of m