Product Description

A multi-stranded, groundbreaking Russian thriller from the bestselling British author of Messiah and Storm.

In December of 1991 Moscow is a city in chaos, torn apart by gang violence and hyperinflation, its population in terror of a killer preying on children. Into this anarchy comes Alice Liddell, an American banker charged with starting the privatization process crucial to Russia’s hopes of reform. But reform means hardship, and surviving the Russian winter is already too hard; Alice has only a short period to succeed before the people lose patience with the progressive government.

Her target is the Red October distillery, Russia’s most famous vodka producer, but Alice soon discovers that time is the least of her problems. Red October is the centrepiece of a savage mafiya war between its charismatic boss Lev and his Chechen nemesis Karkadann. Are the brutal child killings terrorizing Moscow connected to their violent conduct? How should Alice handle the discovery that Red October is riddled with corruption? And can Alice and Lev, adversaries across the negotiating table, reconcile their contradictory professional aims with their very unprofessional feelings for each other?

As the characters get sucked into a vortex of violence, passion and betrayal, their struggles are no longer simply for their own aims; they are for the soul of Russia itself. Concentrated over 100 days of a Russian winter, Vodka is an epic thriller of taut suspense, shocking brutality and heart-pounding pace; it is a saga of rivalry and bloodshed, a searing study of addiction and adultery.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #519016 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-03
• Released on: 2006-01-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 768 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this dense, captivating novel of modern-day Russia by Starling (Messiah; Storm), stunningly beautiful American Alice Liddell arrives in Moscow in 1991 as the city lurches into a changed world after the collapse of the Soviet Union. She's an International Monetary Fund adviser whose job is to privatize Moscow's state-run industries, the first of which will be the legendary Red October vodka distillery. Red October is run by Lev, who is seven feet tall, built like a professional weight lifter and covered with tattoos. The charismatic Lev is not only head of Moscow's largest gang, the 21st Century Association, he is also a parliamentary deputy. Alice and Lev engage in contentious negotiations over who will control the factory, and in no time at all romantic sparks fly. Starling fuels his many story lines—one involving a gang of brutal Chechens; another featuring Juku Irk, Russia's only honest policeman—with an abundance, some might think an overabundance, of facts about life in Russia. While most books would founder under the weight of such extensive research, this great mass of detail is so fascinating that delighted readers will gulp it down like the novel's free-flowing, ubiquitous vodka.
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From AudioFile
A fascinating, convoluted British novel, as long as a Russian novel, is set in chaotic Moscow following the Soviet breakup. The tangled overlapping plot involves political turmoil, terrorism, gangsterism, vampirism, economic crisis and, uniting all, the Russian national drink. Leading the huge cast are a gangster/vodka mogul, an alcoholic (and, of course, beautiful) female American consultant, and an incorruptible, dogged Estonian detective. Except for sporadic moments of animation, reader Peter Marinker recites the narrative with monotonous flatness. In contrast, his dialogue is melodramatic and suffers from unconvincing American and Russian accents. Sound quality of the cassettes could be much, much better. Y.R. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
American Alice Liddell, for whom all bottles urge "drink me," arrives in Moscow at the collapse of the Soviet Union to oversee privatization of the iconic vodka factory Red October. She soon sluices down an alcoholic rabbit hole to an anarchic realm whose magnificent squalor recalls declining Rome under the bloody dominion of proud Visigoths and Huns--or, in this case, Slavic gangsters and their Chechen rivals, notable for being more sadistic than even the Slavs. Against the offhand cruelty of this decadent panorama, where thieves have more honor than bankrupt ideologues and cutthroat capitalists, and where cannibalism isn't always figurative, a good cop's hunt through the sewers for a serial child murderer is unremarkable enough to seem a reflexive carryover from Starling's more personal serial-killer titles (Messiah, Storm). Much more dense and descriptive than these earlier efforts, this sprawling spectacle is awash with detailed background, punctuated by swift and ruthless action that sweeps in off the steppes with bloodthirsty ferocity. Recommended for fans of Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko books, or Robert Harris' evocative thrillers. David Wright
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