Book description
The son of an English father and Russian mother, Charlie Doig is a
big man - big in stature and big in spirit. A naturalist, he roughs it
around the world collecting birds and insects for museums. In 1914 he
is on a mission for the Academy of Sciences in Russian Turkestan when
war breaks out. His pay is stopped and his companion goes off to
enlist. Doig, however, has no intention of volunteering to be killed.
He returns to the Pink House, his family's home near Smolensk, adn to
the woman he loves, his cousin Elizaveta.
At first the Pink House remains untouched by outside events, and the
familiar ways continue as before. But Imperial Russia is doomed and
with in all the old certainties. Trapped by the snow with Doig and
Elizaveta are a motley collection of old aristocrats, their servants
and hangers-on - and the two soldiers, one of whom Doig is convinced
is a Bolshevik out to destroy them all.
James Fleming, the nephew of Ian Fleming, was born in London in
1944. He is the author of four previous novels, all of them good:
The Temple of Optimism, Thomas Gage, Cold Blood and
Rising Blood. He writes in Scotland.
Visit him online at www. jamesfleming. com
