Death on the Trans-Siberian Express
Death on the Trans-Siberian Express

Author: C J Farrington

Publisher: Constable

Published: 2021-11-25

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1472133110

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'Quirky and colourful' Times Crime Club 'An absolute delight' L C Tyler 'This intriguing but charming murder mystery is packed with psychological depth and wonderfully-drawn characters' Eleanor Ray Welcome to Roslazny - a sleepy Russian town where intrigue and murder combine to disturb the icy silence... Olga Pushkin, Railway Engineer (Third Class) and would-be bestselling author, spends her days in a little rail-side hut with only Dmitri the hedgehog for company. While tourists and travellers clatter by on the Trans-Siberian Express, Olga dreams of studying literature at Tomsk State University - the Oxford of West Siberia - and escaping the sleepy, snow-clad village of Roslazny. But Roslazny doesn't stay sleepy for long. Poison-pen letters, a small-town crime wave, and persistent rumours of a Baba Yaga - a murderous witch hiding in the frozen depths of the Russian taiga - combine to disturb the icy silence. And one day Olga arrives at her hut only to be knocked unconscious by a man falling from the Trans-Siberian, an American tourist with his throat cut from ear to ear and his mouth stuffed with 10-ruble coins. Another death soon follows, and Sergeant Vassily Marushkin, the brooding, enigmatic policeman who takes on the case, finds himself falsely imprisoned by his Machiavellian superior, Chief-Inspector Babikov. Olga resolves to help Vassily by proving his innocence. But with no leads to follow and time running out, has Olga bitten off more than she can chew? Praise for Death on the Trans-Siberian Express 'The book is an absolute delight, evocative equally of the frozen steppes, bad vodka and worse sausage, and full of larger than life characters. Olga Pushkin is an endearing protagonist, who is hopefully set for a series as long as the Trans Siberian Railway.' L C Tyler 'Written with a warmth that would thaw Siberia, this intriguing but charming murder mystery is packed with psychological depth and wonderfully-drawn characters. It also features the best hedgehog I've met in a novel.' Eleanor Ray

Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express
Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express

Author: Stuart M. Kaminsky

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2012-10-16

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1453273506

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A Moscow cop juggles cases of kidnapping, murder, and a missing Czarist-era document in a modern-day mystery with “never a dull moment” (Library Journal). In the waning days of the Russian Empire, the Czar inked a secret treaty with Japan that was stolen en route by one of the workmen on the Trans-Siberian Railway. More than a one hundred years later, the Soviet Union has gone the way of the Czardom, and police inspector Porfiry Rostnikov is trying to find his way in the Russia of Vladimir Putin. A large amount of money is being sent from Odessa to Vladivostok to purchase a mysterious Czarist document, and Rostnikov’s superior believes it may be this long-lost treaty. Eastbound ticket in hand, Rostnikov sets out to investigate. Meanwhile, his subordinates in Moscow tackle a female Jack the Ripper and an anti-Semitic punk rocker whose mob connections may have gotten him kidnapped. It’s a brave new world in western Russia, but where Rostnikov is going, the landscape hasn’t changed in centuries.

The Great Railway Bazaar
The Great Railway Bazaar

Author: Paul Theroux

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2006-06-01

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 054752515X

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The acclaimed author recounts his epic journey across Europe and Asia in this international bestselling classic of travel literature: “Compulsive reading” (Graham Greene). In 1973, Paul Theroux embarked on a four-month journey by train from the United Kingdom through Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. In The Great Railway Bazaar, he records in vivid detail and penetrating insight the many fascinating incidents, adventures, and encounters of his grand, intercontinental tour. Asia's fabled trains—the Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Frontier Mail, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, the Mandalay Express, the Trans-Siberian Express—are the stars of a journey that takes Theroux on a loop eastbound from London's Victoria Station to Tokyo Central, then back from Japan on the Trans-Siberian. Brimming with Theroux's signature humor and wry observations, this engrossing chronicle is essential reading for both the ardent adventurer and the armchair traveler.

From the Yaroslavsky Station
From the Yaroslavsky Station

Author: Elizabeth Pond

Publisher: Universe Publishing(NY)

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9780876635360

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Through her vivid descriptions of friendships, chance encounters, and details of day-to-day life, Elizabeth Pond provides a lively and perceptive analysis of Russia and its people today. Completely up-to-date, including developments under Mikhail Gorbachev's leadership.

Riding the Iron Rooster
Riding the Iron Rooster

Author: Paul Theroux

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2006-12-08

Total Pages: 533

ISBN-13: 0547526997

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The acclaimed travel writer chronicles a year of train travel across China in a revealing travelogue that “gives the reader much to relish and think about” (Publishers Weekly). The author of the train travel classics The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express, takes to the rails once again in this account of his epic journey through China. The always irascible, infectiously curious author “is in top form as he describes the barren deserts of Mongolia and Xinjiang, the ice forests of Manchuria and the dry hills of Tibet. He captures their otherworldly, haunting appearances perfectly. He is also right on target when he talks about the ugliness of China's poorly planned, hastily built cities” (Mark Salzman, The New York Times). Theroux hops aboard a train as part of a tour group in London and sets out for China's border. He then spends a year traversing the country, where he pieces together a fascinating snapshot of a unique moment in history. From sweeping and desolate natural landscapes to the dense metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, and Canton, Theroux offers an unforgettable portrait of a magnificent land and an extraordinary people.

Train
Train

Author: Tom Zoellner

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-01-30

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 0698151399

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An epic and revelatory narrative of the most important transportation technology of the modern world In his wide-ranging and entertaining new book, Tom Zoellner—coauthor of the New York Times–bestselling An Ordinary Man—travels the globe to tell the story of the sociological and economic impact of the railway technology that transformed the world—and could very well change it again. From the frigid trans-Siberian railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the Japanese-style bullet trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of this most indispensable form of travel. A masterful narrative history, Train also explores the sleek elegance of railroads and their hypnotizing rhythms, and explains how locomotives became living symbols of sex, death, power, and romance.

Tarnished Icons
Tarnished Icons

Author: Stuart M. Kaminsky

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2012-10-16

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 1453266313

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In the Edgar Award–winning crime series featuring a veteran Moscow cop, “Kaminsky evokes Russian life like a born Muscovite” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). During the widespread corruption of the Yeltsin era, violent crime has risen in Moscow by 200 to 300 percent, keeping Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov and his team at the Office of Special Investigation busier than ever. So it’s fortunate that having his bad leg amputated six months ago and replaced by a prosthetic limb has not slowed down the veteran Moscow cop one bit. Now he’s investigating a hate-fueled crime wave, as a bloodthirsty gunman wages a campaign to systematically exterminate the city’s Jews. At the same time, a knife-wielding rapist is running rampant. Despite the urgent demand to end the mayhem, the inspector finds himself most intrigued by a centuries-old mystery concerning a murdered baroness and a priceless golden wolf statue that has been missing since 1862. Stuart Kaminsky’s long-running, Edgar Award–winning series has seen his intensely moral Moscow police inspector through the turbulence of several regimes, and always “Kaminsky takes care not to rob his beleaguered cops of their human core” (The New York Times).

Between the Covers
Between the Covers

Author: Jilly Cooper

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2020-10-29

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 1473576962

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'No one else can make me laugh and cry quite like Jilly Cooper.' Gill Sims 'Jilly Cooper's non-fiction is just as entertaining as her novels.' Pandora Sykes ____________________ 'One truth I have learnt, as middle age enmeshes me like Virginia creeper, is that I shall never change-because my capacity for self-improvement is absolutely nil.' Jilly Cooper's observations from her days as a much-loved newspaper columnist cover everything to do with sex, socialising and survival - from marriage, friendship and the minutiae of family life, to the tedium of going to visit people for the weekend, the stress of hosting dinner parties and the descent of middle age. Entertaining and full of heart, this classic collection of journalism from the legendary author explores the highs and lows of everyday life with wit, wisdom and warmth. Praise for Jilly Cooper: 'Joyful and mischievous' Jojo Moyes 'Fun, sexy and unputdownable' Marian Keyes 'Flawlessly entertaining' Helen Fielding

The Amur River
The Amur River

Author: Colin Thubron

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2021-09-21

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0063099705

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"A gripping read with fascinating political insight." (Sunday Times, London) "Elegant, elegiac and poignant...Thubron is an intrepid traveler, a shrewd observer and a lyrical guide... to the river, much of it along the border between these two powers at a time of rapid and tense reconfiguration of global geopolitics." (Washington Post) The most admired travel writer of our time—author of Shadow of the Silk Road and To a Mountain in Tibet—recounts an eye-opening, often perilous journey along a little known Far East Asian river that for over a thousand miles forms the highly contested border between Russia and China. The Amur River is almost unknown. Yet it is the tenth longest river in the world, rising in the Mongolian mountains and flowing through Siberia to the Pacific. For 1,100 miles it forms the tense border between Russia and China. Simmering with the memory of land-grabs and unequal treaties, this is the most densely fortified frontier on earth. In his eightieth year, Colin Thubron takes a dramatic journey from the Amur’s secret source to its giant mouth, covering almost 3,000 miles. Harassed by injury and by arrest from the local police, he makes his way along both the Russian and Chinese shores, starting out by Mongolian horse, then hitchhiking, sailing on poacher’s sloops or travelling the Trans-Siberian Express. Having revived his Russian and Mandarin, he talks to everyone he meets, from Chinese traders to Russian fishermen, from monks to indigenous peoples. By the time he reaches the river’s desolate end, where Russia’s nineteenth-century imperial dream petered out, a whole, pivotal world has come alive. The Amur River is a shining masterpiece by the acknowledged laureate of travel writing, an urgent lesson in history and the culmination of an astonishing career.