'The adventures of the original bad boy of the New York restaurant/hotel underbelly continue. Whether writing about the backstairs misadventures of cooks and waiters or travel to faraway lands, Bemelmans is always funny, insightful and dead on target. No one has ever surpassed the master' - Anthony Bourdain
These are stories of longing and dissatisfaction, of daily life ruptured by strange currents of feeling. A woman, wandering alone and heartbroken, is first attacked and then romantically pursued by a stranger. A maid wears her mistress's expensive coat to meet her lover, but finds herself more preoccupied by fantasies of intimacy with 'Madame'. A woman gives birth on the day foreign troops invade the city, and must flee with her newborn on the back of a truck.
An acclaimed, bestselling novel - a stunning work of political fiction that reads like a thriller, about the rise to power of Putin's notorious spin doctor