Zugzwang - Tapa blanda

'A clever and exciting thriller ... a crime novel that's both literary and gripping, a rare treat' Daily Mail 'Brilliant ... atmospheric, ingenious and perfectly paced' Independent on Sunday 'Full of murder, political intrigue and moral dilemmas, and, everywhere, there are lies and betrayal ... Zugzwang is a thriller with ambitions. It has echoes of Graham Greene, Brian Moore and Alan Furst ... Zugzwang is an entertaining and serious work of fiction' TLS 'This classy, literate thriller is about chess, psychoanalysis, Russian skullduggery, history, mystery, romance - and more' The Times

St Petersburg, 1914. Dr Otto Spethmann, a famous psychoanalyst, is implicated in a murder. But he is preoccupied with Avrom Rozental, the brilliant chess master who is due to play the most important competition of his life but is on the verge of a breakdown. With the city rife with speculation and alarm, Spethmann broods over his own chessboard, its pieces frozen mid-battle, and contemplates the forces - political, historical, sexual - that are holding him in their grasp.