The Literature Network - Zugzwang ; PAPERBACKS

Zugzwang ; PAPERBACKS

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From: Evening Standard - London
Date: 20080421
Author:CATHERINE SHOARD

by Ronan Bennett ( Bloomsbury, [pounds]7.99 ) AT FIRST there's something weirdly creaky about this chess thriller set in a 1914 St Petersburg of bombs and whispers. Our narrator, psychoanalyst Dr Otto Spethmann, seems straight out of second-rate Wilkie Collins: fusty, fastidious, fond of the word "bade". But then the plot kicks in Otto's daughter, best friend and two of his clients are implicated in a high-profile murder and before long he's leaping off buildings and whipping out his pistol in a manner much more fitting to the serial hero (this was originally serialised in The Observer).

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