Dispatch from a Cold Country

by Robert Cullen

"[AN] EXCELLENT THRILLER . . . Will keep readers tied up with its clever twists and sleek styling."
--Publishers Weekly

When Jennifer Morelli disappears, Colin Burke, the disillusioned editor of The Washington Tribune, suspects foul play. After all, the eager young reporter insisted that she had stumbled onto a story too hot to handle in St. Petersburg.

So Burke returns to Russia--where he had put in long, hard years as a reporter--and tries to piece together the story that Morelli uncovered. And as he gropes through the dark, seedy maze of Russian politics, he suspects that the Hermitage, a place of pure beauty filled with the world's most breathtaking art, is at the center of the dark scandal Morelli was about to expose. Yet what Burke discovers blows all his expectations out of the a crisis that could explode the fragile Russian government. . . .

"Richly detailed and relentlessly suspenseful, Dispatch is a real page-turner."
--West Coast Review of Books

Genres: Mystery

407 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 28, 1996

About the author

Bob Cullen is a former international correspondent for Newsweek and the author of four acclaimed thrillers, including the New York Times Notable Book of the Year Soviet Sources.

Reviews

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

A suspenseful thriller dealing with art theft and forgery in Russia during the 1990's.

[Jessica - How Jessica Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thriller set in turbulent mid-1990s St Petersburg, starting Colin Burke, an editor for the Washington Tribune. One of Burke's friends, who took a recent trip to the Hermitage in St Petersburg, was brutally murdered. Suspecting a link, Burke takes off for Russia, ending up in the middle of some shady Russian gangsters, Leonardo da Vinci, Columbian drug lords, art historians, newspaper turf wars, a beautiful American art gallery owner, and the Russian people themselves--struggling to survive amidst the political chaos, the rampant crime, and the freezing February temperatures. A little technologically dated perhaps (the lack of cell phones in books like this always makes it obvious that they aren't contemporary), but otherwise a fast and intriguing read, even today.

[Jan (the Gryphon) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to have to check a few of the untranslated words with my Russian buddies to be certain that I gleaned the meaning from context. I can see this as a Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis movie.