Death in St. Petersburg
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A dance with death...
After the final curtain of Swan Lake, an animated crowd exits the Mariinsky theatre brimming with excitement. But outside the scene is somber. A ballerina's body lies face down in the snow, blood splattered like rose petals over the costume of the Swan Queen. The crowd is silenced by a single cry - "Nemetseva is dead!"
Among the theatergoers is Lady Emily, accompanying her dashing husband Colin in Russia on assignment from the Crown. But it soon becomes clear that Colin isn't the only one with work to do. When the dead ballerina's aristocratic lover comes begging for justice, Emily must apply her own set of skills to discover the rising star's murderer. Her investigation takes her on a dance across the stage of Tsarist Russia, from the opulence of the Winter Palace, to the modest flats of ex-ballerinas and the locked attics of political radicals. A mysterious dancer in white follows closely behind, making waves through St. Petersburg with her surprise performances and trail of red scarves. Is it the sweet Katenka, Nemetseva's childhood friend and favorite rival? The ghost of the murdered étoile herself? Or, something even more sinister?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In bestseller Alexander's well-crafted 12th Lady Emily novel (after 2016's A Terrible Beauty), the redoubtable Englishwoman joins her husband, intelligence agent Colin Hargreaves, on a trip to St. Petersburg in January 1900. The couple attend a performance of Swan Lake at the Mariinksky Theatre, where ballet sensation Irina Nemetseva dances the lead, though they're puzzled when another ballerina dances the final act. Later, they discover that Irina lies stabbed to death outside the stage door, still wearing her swan costume. After Prince Vasilii Guryanov, the dancer's secret lover, asks Emily to help find her killer, Emily probes Irina's circle, including her oldest friend and rival: fellow ballerina Ekaterina "Katenka" Sokolova. Katenka is the sister of Irina's former love, a young man whose idealism is dangerous in repressive Russia. Do their tangled relationships give a motive to murder the star? In addition to a satisfying puzzle and the always appealing protagonist, Alexander delivers a memorable portrait of a fairy-tale city dancing on the brink of revolution.
