From Publishers Weekly
Roiling with class tensions and rife with danger, St. Petersburg during the twilight of the last czar serves as the chessboard on which Irish author Bennett (The Catastrophist) stages this heady historical thriller. The game begins with a bang: the murder of prominent newspaper editor O.V. Gulko in March 1914, just weeks before the city hosts a glittering international chess tournament. (Zugzwang refers to a situation in which a player can make only moves that worsen his position.) Then there's a second slaying. Despite plenty of the usual suspects—Bolsheviks, pro-German reactionaries, Polish nationalists—the police start grilling respected psychoanalyst Otto Spethmann and his 18-year-old daughter. The widower's protestations of innocence cut little ice with his chief inquisitor, Insp. Mintimer Lychev, a mysterious sort who happens to share Spethmann's chess enthusiasm. Dr. Spethmann's only hope: using his analytic skills to crack the case. As he races the clock, he and Lychev become caught up in a high-stakes battle of wits. The plot packs more than enough surprises to keep any suspense junkie sated. (Nov.)
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Remaining apolitical is a tall order for a Jew in 1914 Russia. The Bolsheviks are on the rise, tensions are mounting between alliance-seeking France and Germany, and acrid threats of pogrom and czarist repression linger in the air. Yet psychoanalyst Otto Spethmann prefers to stay above the fray and guard the middle-class standing he's achieved despite his humble roots. How ironic, then, that he's thrust into the midst of a murder plot involving power players across the political spectrum of prerevolution St. Petersburg. Bennett explains that his delicious title is a chess term "used to describe a position in which a player is reduced to a state of utter helplessness. He is obliged to move, but his every move only makes his position worse." That indeed appears to be Spethmann's predicament as he's stalked by the secret police, manipulated by old friends, frustrated by a treatment-resisting chess master, seduced by the daughter of a Jew-hating German sympathizer, and jailed by an overzealous policeman for refusing to reveal the real name of his daughter's dead boyfriend. Spethmann's a better chess player than even he realizes, however, and ultimately the good doctor navigates these (and many other) dangers by always thinking several moves ahead. Readers who love Anna Karenina as much as they enjoy a gripping mystery will find a little slice of heaven here. Sennett, Frank
