Snowdrops

November 1, 2010
Things may not be what they appear, but they turn out to be exactly what readers will predict in this saggy debut about shady business deals in go-go capitalist Russia. Nick Platt, a lawyer who has traded his dull British life for pushing paper in Moscow, soon takes up with a leggy young Russian about whom he knows nothing and, at her behest, helps a babushka trade her fabulous apartment for a half-built place in the country. The deal seems like a scam, and, of course, it is, but Nick is blinded by lust and nearly always a step behind the reader. He blithely gets involved in a multimillion-dollar loan for an oil pipeline brokered by a dodgy fellow known only as "the Cossack," even after a key player goes missing. Most readers will not be so easily duped, and Nick's oft-repeated I-should-have seen-it-comings undercut any suspense that might remain, though there are interesting bits to be found in the travelogue-style writing about the new Russia.

November 1, 2010

Economist editor Miller makes his fiction debut with a bleak tale of fraud and manipulation in early-21st-century Moscow.

The unbridled mayhem of the 1990s has died down a bit, but Western companies are still pouring money into the hands of newly minted Russian conglomerates, and British lawyer Nicholas Platt is writing the contracts. Meanwhile, he's enjoying the louche pleasures of Moscow nightlife. He's also enjoying the company of Masha and her sister Katya—well, actually they're not sisters—and Tatiana Vladimirovna, the old lady they introduce as their aunt, who isn't a relative either. But by the time Nicholas finds that out, he's enmeshed in a scheme whereby Tatiana will swap her apartment in the center of Moscow for new suburban digs and $50,000 in cash. The scheme is as obviously phony as the deal Nicholas is brokering between a consortium of banks and a Cossack who purports to be fronting for a company that will build "a floating oil terminal somewhere up in the Barents Sea," and Nicholas's narrative, addressed to his wife-to-be back in London, makes it clear that he more or less knew it from the start. A protagonist's willed blindness can be a strong premise (as in Jane Smiley's Good Faith, 2003), if the author makes palpable the reasons for such self-deception. Sex with Masha, a decidedly down-market temptress, just doesn't seem motive enough. Miller, formerly a Moscow correspondent for Economist, vividly evokes the no-holds-barred atmosphere of the city in its early-capitalist stage, but it's seedy rather than alluring, and as Nicholas deliberately ignores glaring signs that he's being conned, readers may well find him stupid rather than tragically deluded. Depressive asides to his English fiancée reinforce our feeling that he deserves the comeuppance he gets.

Good local color, but nothing much to care about here.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2011

A sense of foreboding pervades this quietly intense novel, set in a freewheeling Russia of the early 21st century. British narrator Nick Platt describes two intersecting experiences of corruption and duplicity. One is his naive involvement in a scheme to bankrupt an innocent babushka. Distracted by his love affair with one of the con artists, Nick does not allow himself to realize that he is being used for his lawyerly skills. The other con occurs when the bank he represents is lured into releasing $500 million for a seemingly legitimate oil project. It is obvious that bad things are going to happen on both fronts, and the story becomes strangely gripping as the final details are revealed. VERDICT Martin Cruz Smith's Three Stations meets J. Robert Lennon's enigmatic but similarly paced Castle in this new work. A lesson in the art of self-delusion and the dog-eat-dog society of post-Soviet Russia, it's sure to be an instant success. Essential for committed readers of fiction and a discussion feast for book clubs.--Henry Bankhead, Los Gatos P.L., CA

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2010
Written as a mans confession to the woman hes going to marry, Millers masterful debut chronicles British lawyer Nicholas Platts dubious dealings in Moscow at the turn of the twenty-first century. Nicks descent begins with what seems to be an innocuous meeting with two beautiful Russian sisters, Masha and Katya, whom he saves from a purse-snatcher. Hes immediately drawn to the sensual, remote Masha, who soon becomes his lover. Nick doesnt think anything of it when Masha and Katya take him to meet their Aunt Tatiana, and Mashas request that he help Tatiana broker a deal to exchange her Moscow apartment for one out in the country seems simple enough. As Nick, guided by Masha, helps Tatiana hammer out the details of the apartment exchange, little inconsistencies nag at him, but his lust for Masha and thought that she might be the one for him cause him to push aside his worries. A mesmerizing tale of a man seduced by a culture he fancies himself above, Millers novel is both a nuanced character study and a fascinating look at the complexities of Russian society.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)