Dispatch from a Cold Country [Mass Market Paperback]

Robert Cullen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 1997

"[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 water: 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

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Where can the Hermitage find much-needed dollars? Sell a masterpiece for millions and then cover the illegal sale with an "authentic" forgery. Jennifer Morelli, a new American correspondent, discovers the plot but is murdered before she can submit the scoop to Colin Burke, a former Moscow-based journalist (and star of the author's Cover Story, LJ 5/1/94) who is now deputy foreign editor for the Washington Tribune. Feeling responsible, Burke takes a leave from his new job and travels to St. Petersburg to investigate. This dangerous crusade brings him into the path of numerous people with other agendas, including a well-armed Colombian art buyer, various Russian factions, and an attractive undercover C.I.A. agent. The multiple perspectives defuse suspense and keep the witty, likable Burke off-stage more than some readers may like. Yet series hallmarks such as a strong sense of place and fast pacing make this a priority purchase for fiction collections.
V. Louise Saylor, Eastern Washington Univ. Lib., Cheney
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

The third Colin Burke international thriller (Soviet Sources, 1990; Cover Story, 1994) has our intrepid reporter taking one of those dangerous Hitchcock travelogues, in this case to the troubled St. Petersburg of the new Russia. The MacGuffin is a Leonardo painting called Madonna Litta, presently owned by the great Hermitage art museum but about to be sold secretly, with many payoffs, to a Colombian drug lord for $400 million. If the nefarious deed were made public, it could rock the government. Jennifer Morelli, Burke's young freelance prot‚g‚, who has film and facts on the potential scandal, calls him from Frankfurt, planning to meet him at the Washington Tribune. But Jennifer's been followed from Russia by the Hermitage's creepy Ivan Bykov, who likes to combine pleasure (sexual sadism) with business (he kills her). Burke discovers her mutilated body, feels personally responsible, takes time off from the Tribune, and flies to St. Petersburg to find out who killed Jennifer and why. (Her murder would seem to be connected to the recent death of the Hermitage's director.) Along the way, the satisfyingly complex storylines include (1) our not-so-innocent Burke abroad; (2) Desdemona McCoy, young, attractive, black, feisty, and a field operator for the agency in Langley, who returns to St. Petersburg to monitor that sale; (3) Andrusha Karpov, in Italy to find Florentine ocher for Nadyezhda Petrovna, who's painted a brilliant copy of the Madonna Litta; (4) art broker Charles Hamilton Merrill, who's arranging for drug lord Rafael Santera Calderon to buy the Leonardo; and (5) Russian mafia boss Slema Chavchavadze. Before the end, things heat up between Desdemona and Burke as they and their trio of allies try to survive a lot of cruel, greedy, mean men. Cullen's latest is good enough--aside from the occasional clich‚ and the seemingly obligatory genre romance--that one wishes to call it a fine novel instead of an effective page-turner. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 10 pages
• Publisher: Fawcett (April 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804114447
• ISBN-13: 978-0804114448
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,393,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Color, April 11, 2002

By 

John G. Hilliard (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dispatch from a Cold Country (Hardcover)

This is another exciting book from Mr. Cullen. He really has a distinctive way a describing the dark beauty of Russia and getting into the heads the Russian every man. The story has a great story line and he peppers the book with interesting sub plots that keep you interested. With that said I did think the love story sub plot could have been left out. I am convinced that long ago some book publishing executive wrote a set of rules which dictated that all action thrillers need some kind of sub plot love story. Then one just seemed to me to be thrown in by the author to placate someone other then the author thinking it was an intricate part of the story. Overall a good book, if you have liked his other work then you will enjoy this one.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous read and great local color of St. Petersburg, July 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dispatch from a Cold Country (Mass Market Paperback)

Cullen writes an engrossing thriller that does full justice to the beauty and color of St. Petersburg, and he knows the Hermitage well. I was a Fulbright professor in St. Petersburg in 1998 (back again in summer 1999) and I was in and out of the offices and galleries he mentions, and so have a special appreciation for how well he captured the look, feel, and temperament of that great museum.

There is, however, a stark error in the Kirkus plot summary of this book: The subject painting in the novel is NOT the Madonna Litta at all, but instead is a (fictional) painting by Leonardo da Vinci of Leda.

5.0 out of 5 stars Still going strong, September 16, 2010

By 

X-Wonderbug "x-wonderbug" (NE Illinois) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dispatch from a Cold Country (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries) (Colin Burke) (Paperback)

This is the third in the Colin Burke Trilogy (see my first two reviews) about an American, Russian-speaking journalist in Russia. Author Cullen draws upon his actual experience as an American journalist in Russia, and paints a vivid picture (pardon the pun) of life in Russia, the society and the still-extant police repression in the still-paranoid Russian Governmental bureaucrats, who feel that total control over everyone in the society is mandatory. The story descriptions are an educational lesson about post communism Russia, the people and the overpowering bureaucracy. Cullen seems to say that nothing much has changed, only the names have changed to protect the guilty and perhaps, delude the West into believing that Russia is now a free democracy. Knowing Russia, would the nomenklatura willingly give up their power? Hardly.