SASHENKA

Inspired by a true story, historian Montefiore (Young Stalin, 2007, etc.) turns novelist to profile a young revolutionary who leads an exemplary Marxist life until a romantic misadventure puts her in Stalin’s sights.

Sashenka, teenage daughter of a Jewish oil magnate, is exiting an exclusive prep school for daughters of the Russian nobility in 1916 when, instead of being picked up by her father’s chauffeur, she’s arrested by the Tsarist police, who have gotten wind of her subversive activities as “Comrade Snowfox.” After spending the night in jail, she’s interrogated by Captain Sagan, who releases her to her family. Uncle Mendel, Sashenka’s mentor in the Bolshevik movement, assigns her to turn Sagan into a double agent; Sagan has similar designs upon Sashenka. As these intrigues play out, the Tsar abdicates, and the Revolution ensues. Sagan dies in the rioting, and Sashenka becomes Lenin’s secretary. By 1939, she is a model Soviet matron, the wife of Vanya, a rising star in Stalin’s NKVD. When Uncle Joe himself crashes a soiree at her dacha, she’s intimidated, but relieved that the dictator seems taken with her children, Snowy and Carlo. Despite her communist scruples, Sashenka is drawn to impish younger man Benya Golden, a writer who seduces her with blandishments both verbal and physical. After Vanya bugs the lovers’ trysting places, he’s arrested by his former employers, taking Sashenka, Mendel and Benya down with him. Under torture, all confess to trumped-up conspiracy charges and disappear into the voracious maw of Stalin’s terror machine. Snowy and Carlo survive, spirited under false names to adoptive families by family friend Satinov. In 1994, a Russian oligarch engages fledgling historian Katinka to research the disappearance of his grandparents in 1939. Katinka soon learns that Satinov, now 94, holds the key to the enigma of her client’s origins, but Satinov challenges her to arrive at the solution independently—for reasons not clear until the well-tuned surprise ending.

Katinka’s archival research is as suspenseful as Sashenka’s trials in this deft fiction debut.