Dispatch from a Cold Country (Colin Burke, 3)

by Robert Cullen

Recalled to Washington and riding an editor's desk, journalist Colin Burke itches to be back in Russia. A friend's murder is hardly the cause he would have wished for, so it's with a mix of guilt and eagerness that he picks up his reporter's notebook again, and heads for St. Petersburg. Poking around the seedy, familiar corridors of Russian politics and police bureaucracy, Burke is in his element, but as the threads of the murder seem increasingly to lead to the Hermitage - one of the world's great museums - he may be out of his depth. Someone seems to have been planning to steal some of the museum's priceless paintings, but Burke knows nothing about art. Fumbling his way into instant expertise, he could have the story that will cap his career. But there's a good chance that he'll get capped instead.

Genres: Mystery

201 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 1996

About the author

Bob Cullen is a former international correspondent for Newsweek and the author of four acclaimed thrillers, including the New York Times Notable Book of the Year Soviet Sources.

Reviews

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

A suspenseful thriller dealing with art theft and forgery in Russia during the 1990's.

[Jessica - How Jessica Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thriller set in turbulent mid-1990s St Petersburg, starting Colin Burke, an editor for the Washington Tribune. One of Burke's friends, who took a recent trip to the Hermitage in St Petersburg, was brutally murdered. Suspecting a link, Burke takes off for Russia, ending up in the middle of some shady Russian gangsters, Leonardo da Vinci, Columbian drug lords, art historians, newspaper turf wars, a beautiful American art gallery owner, and the Russian people themselves--struggling to survive amidst the political chaos, the rampant crime, and the freezing February temperatures. A little technologically dated perhaps (the lack of cell phones in books like this always makes it obvious that they aren't contemporary), but otherwise a fast and intriguing read, even today.

[Jan (the Gryphon) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to have to check a few of the untranslated words with my Russian buddies to be certain that I gleaned the meaning from context. I can see this as a Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis movie.