The White Russian

Book excerpt: From the author of Midnight in St. Petersburg and Portrait of an Unknown Woman comes a novel of love, art, music and family secrets set amongst the Russian emigre community of Paris in 1937 Evie, a rebellious young American, leaves New York in search of art and adventure in jazz-age Paris, where her bohemian grandmother, long estranged from the rest of the family, lives. But her grandmother’s sudden death just after her arrival leaves Evie compelled to carry out her relative’s dying wish: to find a man from her past known only as Zhenya. The quest leads Evie deep into the heart of the Russian emigre community of Paris. With the world on the brink of war, she becomes embroiled in murder plots, conspiracies and illicit love affairs as White faces Red Russian, and nothing is as it seems. With Jean, a liberal Russian refugee connected to her grandmother’s circle, by her side, Evie seems to have finally found the passion and excitement she’s yearned for all her life. But is she any nearer to discovering the identity of the mysterious Zhenya or the heartbreak of her grandmother’s past?