Шарлотт Хобсон5.0 In September 1991, the Soviet Union is collapsing and people conquer uncertainty, hunger, and negative-twenty degree temperatures by drinking too much vodka and reveling in their new-found sexual freedom. Charlotte Hobson is our irresistible guide to this tumultuous time. We meet Yakov, who blows half-a-million rubles on a taxi to see a girl in Minsk; Lola, who sleeps with her peers for a share of their dinner; Viktor, who struggles to forget his brutal memories of military service; and Mitya, Hobson’s wild and optimistic lover, whose gradual disillusion and dissolution mirror his country’s lurch from euphoria to despair.
Marcel Theroux5.0 Damien March hadn't thought of his eccentric uncle for almost twenty years until he received a telegram: Patrick dead. Father. Damien, a journalist for the BBC in London, is even more shocked to learn that he has inherited his uncle's ramshackle house on Ionia, an isolated island off the coast of Cape Cod. Damien's step into a new future means moving circuitously into his family's past. He uncovers letters and writings-scattered clues that shed light on Patrick's solitary life. When he discovers a fragment of an unpublished novel, The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes, the stakes in this paper chase are suddenly higher. Mycroft Holmes, the older brother of Sherlock, is one of literature's most intriguing absences. A neglected genius who lived in obscurity, he bears a striking resemblance to Patrick himself. The parallels quickly grow more disconcerting, and a sinister tale of murder and deception takes on new meaning. Soon Damien finds himself revealing dark and unsettling truths that shatter his most fundamental assumptions.
Written with warmth and distinctive humor, The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes is at once an engaging mystery and an illuminating story about family secrets and identity.
