Beautifully written, intricate and entrancing. --Jaroslaw Anders,Los Angeles Times Book Review
Galicia, Austria-Hungary, 1913. In the castle of a frontier town, on the border between Europe and the East, the corrupt Count-Governor Wiladowski watches helplessly while a wave of assassinations sweeps the empire, and his province. When a member of his own family is murdered, the count gives broad police powers to his spymaster, Jakob Tausk: a brilliant young Jew whose ruthless war on terror extends into every corner of the province and beyond, enlisting union organizers, financiers, aristocrats and their servants, and a young novelist and playwright, newly arrived in the Vienna of Franz Josef and Freud, hungry for literary success.
Bernstein creates a vivid cast of characters and does a superb job of evoking the feverish intellectual atmosphere of Middle Europe.... A pleasure to read. Jamie James, The Wall Street Journal
Bernstein gets it all right.Conspiratorsemotionally compelling and intellectually exhilarating, splendidly re-creates a forgotten world. Dan Cryer, Newsday
Grandly old-fashioned...Bernstein maintains firm control of his plot, and painstakingly re-creates the historical landscape. The New Yorker
Michael Andr? Bernsteinis a frequent contributor toThe Times Literary Supplement, theLos Angeles Times Book Review, andThe New Republic. He is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley.
Beautifully written, intricate and entrancing. --Jaroslaw Anders,Los Angeles Times Book Review
Galicia, Austria-Hungary, 1913. In the castle of a frontier town, on the border between Europe and the East, the corrupt Count-Governor Wiladowski watches helplessly while a wave of assassinations sweeps the empire, and his province. When a member of his own family is murdered, the count gives broad police powers to his spymaster, Jakob TauslS"