The Angels of Russia by
Patricia Le Roy
pbk out May 99
(Piatkus)
at £6.99
Caveat emptor! Patricia le Roy's complex and intriguing debut novel,
published first on the Internet, is Part One of a trilogy that will deal
with "the fall and legacy of communism". In spite of all that, whilst
crime readers may not take kindly to its initially leisurely pace, it is
a well-plotted novel with much to interest students of both genre and
politics. But which genre? And whose politics?
As the standoffish romance between the occasionally Mills & Boon-ish
heroine, Stéphanie Villers-Massenet and the spiky, KGB-harassed Russian
dissident Sergei gets under way, it is politics - and literature - that
take precedence. Stéphanie, temporarily resident in Leningrad, is a
student of Russian Literature. Thus the opening paragraphs cite Pushkin,
suggest Dostoievsky and soon set about reminding us of the early history
of glasnost, crucially as it turns out, in the Soviet Union of Mikhail
Gorbachev.
The clues, to be fair, in a story that concludes in the kind of
nail-biting climax characteristic of the best spy fiction, are all
there. An occasional mysterious first person narrator; the cover
strapline suggesting "in the cold war Soviet Union, even passion is
political", though it is a slow affection, rather than passion, that
grows between Stéphanie and Sergei. Finally assured of Stéphanie's
concern for him, Sergei suggests a marriage of convenience that enables
them both to travel to France. But is Sergei all he seems?
The answer lies in a story of family breakdown, revenge and the
forces, both public and private, unleashed as the country of Gorbachev's
glasnost crumbles around him. "In Russia," le Roy assures us, "nothing
is as it seems." Not even, she argues, Gorbachev's glasnost. For like
the other characters in this well-written, if occasionally didactic
novel, Gorbachev was an unwitting "prisoner of the past." Ironically,
according to an interview he gave for the recent Jeremy Isaac's TV
series The Cold War, it's a conclusion Gorbachev himself has reached.
If you are looking for something a little bit different, try this one.
It's always interesting, and in the end, rewarding too.
The Angels of Russia by
Patricia Le Roy