Vodka Neat (Thorndike Thrillers) [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Anna Blundy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2008 | Series: Thorndike Thrillers

Her motto:

Courage without equal

Truth without bullshit

Vodka without tonic

 

"Faith Zanetti is everyone's favorite messed-up war correspondent."

- Sarah Weinman, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

 

Vodka Neat features Faith Zanetti, a war correspondent with plenty of libido, good looks, a great sense of humor, and a zest for life that never quits. She's the new Moscow correspondent for a leading newspaper--chosen for the job because she married a Russian when she was a teenager.

 

But the minute she steps on Russian soil, she is instantly arrested in connection with the murders, fifteen years before, of a couple from a neighboring apartment. She was drunk at the time, but surely not that drunk. In order to solve the mystery, what she needs to do is find the charming Russian black marketer she married as a nineteen-year-old. And when she finds him, her problems really begin.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. British journalist Blundy's brilliant thriller provides sharp insights into the new Russia vs. the old Soviet Union. Sixteen years after reporter Faith Zanetti left Russia, she returns to Moscow as a correspondent for a London newspaper only to be charged with a double murder her shady estranged husband, Dimitri Sakhnov, confessed to committing back in 1989. Faith learns Dimitri has recanted, fingering her as the killer. But when Faith visits the psychiatric prison where Dimitri is incarcerated, she discovers Dimitri is actually Adrian Smith, an old American friend gone Russian whom Dimitri has framed. While Adrian, who soon dies under suspicious circumstances, tells Faith Dimitri is dead, Faith suspects otherwise, and with the help of her boyfriend, a New Yorker staff writer on assignment in Russia, she gets on Dimitri's trail. This bracing portrait of an alcoholic, chain-smoking career woman struggling to recover her balance will leave American readers eager for more of Faith Zanetti's adventures. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

War correspondents, like professional athletes, are old at 35, and British Faith Zanetti is feeling every year of living rough and drinking hard. Assigned to the Moscow desk because she was once married to a Russian black marketeer, Faith is happy to return to the country she loves, reveling in the grim fatalism of modern Russia. But her past catches up with her when she is arrested on her first night in Moscow for a 1989 murder. In a complex, tense, and fast-moving story, Faith attempts to clear herself and uncover the real murderer, but that means confronting her own past and locating her gangster husband. Thick with the icy atmosphere of the Russian winter, Blundy’s prose vividly evokes Russia in the post-Soviet era, from the streets of Moscow to the Arctic tundra, and her characters are fully fleshed, flawed, and thoroughly human. This is a fine mystery (four installments of the series have been published in the UK), with an interesting and engaging female lead and a strong sense of place; see the review of The Bad News Bible, in which Faith is posted to Jerusalem. --Jessica Moyer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 453 pages
• Publisher: Gale Cengage; Lrg edition (August 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1410409384
• ISBN-13: 978-1410409386
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,936,162 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Thriller Made Excellent by Descriptions of Russia and Soviet Union, August 24, 2009

By 

Beth - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vodka Neat: A Faith Zanetti Thriller (Faith Zanetti Thrillers) (Hardcover)

In VODKA NEAT, Faith Zanetti is a 35-year-old English journalist, a foreign correspondent. Her current assignment is to Russia simply because she lived there 16 years ago when it was the Soviet Union so knows the language. She finds as soon as she arrives the second time that she is suspected of a gruesome double murder that occurred the first time.

So Zanetti now needs to find the Russian husband she married all those years ago, when she was 19, and then left behind when she returned to London. He was with her when they discovered the bloody bodies.

This novel certainly is a mystery/thriller as Zanetti, drinking a lot and talking tough throughout, unravels this mystery: what really occurred in the Soviet Union, and what is occurring in Russia? But VODKA NEAT is excellent because the mystery/thrills include descriptions of the Soviet Union as it was and Russia as it is and her life as an innocent 19-year-old in one and as a tough 35-year-old in the other. Zanetti's comments are sarcastic and witty.

For example, at one point, Zanetti is talking about McDonalds when she was in the Soviet Union. "My friend Adrian always used to steal the napkins, straws, toilet light bulbs, and loo roll. So did everyone in Moscow, so in the end they locked the light bulbs into immovable globes and stopped providing everything else."

Another example: "These days a lot of Moscow looks quite beautiful, if a bit inhospitable and imposing. Mayor Luzhkov cleaned it up for a big anniversary, but he didn't clean up any of the bits where foreigh dignitaries weren't going to see. These are the bits where everyone lives."

Obviously, the author, Anna Blundy, has been here herself. As a matter of fact, she lived and worked in Russia as a journalist. So when she shows us the Soviet Union and Russia, we really do see them the way a Western journalist would find them. She's sarcastic and witty. And her Faith Zanetti is authentic.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Neat Vodka - Pure Russia, October 5, 2006

By 

Kmh Dean - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Neat Vodka (Paperback)

This gripping murder story is set in post-Soviet Russia and captures that strange, frightening but exhilarating place brilliantly.
The characters fascinate and the plot is wonderfully unpredictable.
The heroine, Faith Zannetti, is more of an anti-heroine but one can't but love her all the same - I just hope she is not about to retire but will return soon.
And you'll love the duck shooting from a tank (military tank, that is)scene - entirely realistic, I can assure you.

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Background, August 18, 2011

By 

Ohioan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vodka Neat: A Faith Zanetti Thriller (Faith Zanetti Thrillers) (Hardcover)

What I liked most about this book was the fact that the hero was British and that the setting was in modern-day Russia. I enjoyed experiencing the world and the story from these two different perspectives. But I found the hero not that interesting and not that sympathetic, and the story as a whole felt as if it needed tightening. I wouldn't mind reading more from this author if I felt her more recent novels were tighter.