Zugzwang

September 10, 2007
Roiling with class tensions and rife with danger, St. Petersburg during the twilight of the last czar serves as the chessboard on which Irish author Bennett (The Catastrophist
) stages this heady historical thriller. The game begins with a bang: the murder of prominent newspaper editor O.V. Gulko in March 1914, just weeks before the city hosts a glittering international chess tournament. (Zugzwang
refers to a situation in which a player can make only moves that worsen his position.) Then there’s a second slaying. Despite plenty of the usual suspects—Bolsheviks, pro-German reactionaries, Polish nationalists—the police start grilling respected psychoanalyst Otto Spethmann and his 18-year-old daughter. The widower’s protestations of innocence cut little ice with his chief inquisitor, Insp. Mintimer Lychev, a mysterious sort who happens to share Spethmann’s chess enthusiasm. Dr. Spethmann’s only hope: using his analytic skills to crack the case. As he races the clock, he and Lychev become caught up in a high-stakes battle of wits. The plot packs more than enough surprises to keep any suspense junkie sated.