Londongrad: An Artie Cohen Mystery (Artie Cohen Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Ms. Reggie Nadelson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Artie Cohen Mysteries | Publication Date: June 23, 2009

“If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”—E. M. Forster

Through seven previous novels, Reggie Nadelson has created one of the more memorable characters in detective fiction: Artie Cohen, New York police detective and first-generation American with complex ties to his Russian past, especially his close friendship with the enigmatic and flamboyant New York/London club owner T olya Sverdloff. Now, in Londongrad—by far Nadelson’s most ambitious novel to date—Artie is faced with a murder that strikes at him personally and will ultimately place his best friend’s life in his hands as it challenges his own loyalty.

In a playground in Brooklyn, Artie is led to a dead girl tied up in duct tape on a children’s swing. He soon realizes the killer murdered the wrong girl—the intended victim was Valentina S verdloff, Tolya’s daughter, long adored by Artie. Artie flies to London to tell Tolya and finds himself enmeshed on his friend’s behalf in a maelstrom of Russian money and crime. Like Berlin at the end of World War II, somebody tells Artie, Londongrad, as it’s known, has become an offshore island for the new Russian underworld. Over his head, Artie is drawn further in, to Moscow, where, balancing between the old KGB and the new FSB, between the dazzle and grimness of Russia today, he uncovers a painful truth about his past that puts Tolya’s life in the balance.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. A chance encounter leads Artie Cohen to a disturbing Brooklyn crime scene in Nadelson's outstanding eighth novel to feature the New York City police detective and son of a former KGB officer (after 2007's Fresh Kills): a woman has been wrapped in duct tape and tied to a playground swing. Artie calls the murder in, but his attempts to remain uninvolved in the ensuing probe are futile. The more Artie learns about the victim, Masha Panchuk, the more he suspects that she was not the killer's intended target, and that his love, Valentina Sverdloff, daughter of his best friend, Tolya, was. When someone smothers Valentina to death, Artie must travel to London to break the tragic news to Tolya, a shady entrepreneur whose business activities straddle the line between legitimate and illegitimate. As the dark, compelling plot gathers momentum, Artie, a principled, street-smart guy with very human failings, launches his own quest for justice. (July)
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From Booklist

New York police detective and Russian immigrant Artie Cohen is looking forward to a week’s vacation (crime-novel heroes should know better than to take vacations) when he agrees to deliver some books to an aging fellow Russian living near Brighton Beach. On the way, he finds a dead body wrapped in silver duct tape from head to foot, a signal from the Russian mob to keep your mouth shut. Quickly, the trail leads to Artie’s best friend, nightclub owner and possible gangster Tolya Sverdloff, and his daughter, Valentina, with whom Artie, despite a 20-year age difference, is in love. As the pace quickens and the body count mounts, Nadelson follows the money (and, in the new world of Russian full-frontal capitalism, there is still plenty of it) from Manhattan to London to Moscow. There is an almost surreal fury to the action in an Artie Cohen novel, and if the narrative voice seems to falter now and again, such infelicities of style are quickly forgotten as one’s pulse rate accelerates. Best of all, though, is the neon-bright portrait Nadelson paints of the new Russia, awash in sleaze and dirty money. --Bill Ott

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company (June 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802717527
• ISBN-13: 978-0802717528
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,148,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Artie Cohen In His Prime, June 23, 2009

By 

S. Zwerling (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Londongrad: An Artie Cohen Mystery (Artie Cohen Mysteries) (Hardcover)

My favorite detective, Artie Cohen, is again at loose in the world. This time in New York, London, and Moscow. The reasons for his wandering are tied so tightly to the plot that I hesitate to spoil it for you by attempting to summarize very much. Suffice it to say that there are multiple murders in all locations and enough twists in the narrative to keep you guessing and engaged. Like me, I suspect you will not be able to put "Londongrad" down. To say that this is a page-turner does not do it justice because its sense of place and character is so strong that you will forget that this is a "just" a thriller and get draw into its literary qualities. Reggie Nadelson's best yet. I can't wait for the next one.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Timely Tale of Crossed Loyalties, July 9, 2009

By 

Paul E. Richardson "Russian Life" (Montpelier, VT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Londongrad: An Artie Cohen Mystery (Artie Cohen Mysteries) (Hardcover)

If your summer reading calls for something more in the murder mystery and thriller genre, you can't go wrong with Nadelson's latest installment (the 8th)?in the Artie Cohen mystery series.

Cohen is a hard-drinking, no-nonsense New York cop who also happens to be a first generation Russian-American. His life is tangled with enough unsavory types to provide ample color and grist, and in this instance, it sucks him into the world of Russian oligarchs, FBI investigations and FSB?in trigues. The catalyst is the murder of two young women, one of whom is his lover, Valentina, who also happens to be his best friend's daughter.

Splicing in bits of current events, most notably the radioactive murder of Alexander Litvinenko, Nadelson fashions a timely tale of crossed loyalties and international conspiracies that should serve many well as a guilty summer pleasure. (As reviewed in Russian Life)

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Nadelson's finest..., August 3, 2009

By 

Terribleman "(Frank)" (London, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Londongrad: An Artie Cohen Mystery (Artie Cohen Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Artie Cohen truly came into his own with Disturbed Earth, the first volume of Nadelson's Archipelago Trilogy, and since then has gone from strength to strength - though in these powerful, poignant, novels, strength is often weakness. Artie Cohen her brooding Russian cop has been clinging to his world as it began to crumble - in the heart-wrenching Fresh Kills, he vainly struggles to protect his nephew Billy Farone, but in Londongrad, Nadelson ups the stakes and Artie's world seems as though it might implode. The unearthly chill of the scene in which Artie discovers a body shrouded in silver duct tape turning slowly on a child's swing sets in motion a terrible spiral that sprawls outward from Brooklyn to the London and on to the suppurating corruption of Putin's Moscow. An exceptional thriller.