San Antonio College Library

In the ruins of Moscow two centuries after the apocalypse, inhabitants dwell in primitive, frequently brutal conditions in which mice are a source of food, clothing, and commerce and books are banned by the ruling tyrant.

"Angels on the Head of a Pin is set in Moscow in the late 1960s, at a time when Khrushchev-era liberalization is being threatened by the return to personality cult and repression following the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia." "The editor-in-chief of the organ of the Communist Party collapses with a heart attack outside the Central Committee building. This is partly brought on by the appearance of a samizdat manuscript on his desk that leads...

San Francisco prosecutor Lara Patrick flies to Moscow to investigate the death of her mother, a 1960s Berkeley activist who moved there. No sooner in Russia, than Lara is framed for murder. Fortunately there is detective Yuri Kirov who falls in love with her.

Mikhail Bulgakov's devastating satire of Soviet life was written during the darkest period of Stalin's regime. Combining two distinct yet interwoven parts-one set in ancient Jerusalem, one in contemporary Moscow-the novel veers from moods of wild theatricality with violent storms, vampire attacks, and a Satanic ball; to such somber scenes as the meeting of Pilate and Yeshua, and the murder of Judas in the moonlit garden of Gethsemane; to the substanceless,...

Chief Homicide Investigator Arkady Renko's investigation of three mutilated bodies reaches to the highest levels of the Communist hierarchy.

In the title novella, the rivalry between two brothers in love with the same Jewish girl moves from 1946 Moscow to a slave-labor camp above the Arctic Circle, where a tryst in the House of Meetings will have a haunting influence on three characters.