Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
From the acclaimed author of NORTH OF BOSTON comes FINDING KATERINA M., a riveting and timely thriller that will shock you until the very last page. Natalie March is an accomplished, workaholic surgeon at one of DC's top hospitals, who uses the little downtime she has to care for her elderly Russian-immigrant mother, Vera. One day, Natalie has a surprise visitor to her office: a young Russian ballet dancer named Saldana, who tells Natalie that an entire branch of her family, people that Vera believed were killed during World War Two, are very much alive. The very next day, Saldana is garroted by what appears to be a professional assassin, her body left on the street in New York. Natalie takes a leave from her job, and, with Vera's help, flies to Siberia to try to locate her aunt and cousin. As shocking secrets are revealed about the family she thought long gone, Natalie soon discovers that even asking questions about her family can be deadly. In her search for her missing family, Natalie discovers a plot to smuggle chemical weapons out of Russia, and winds up on the run from both the CIA and Russian intelligence. As she struggles to evade capture, and find her family deep in the forests of Siberia, Natalie discovers an even more terrible secret that some very dangerous people will kill to conceal. FINDING KATERINA M. is a fast-paced pulse-driven thriller, driven by an unforgettable heroine that portrays a Russia where many will kill to keep secrets hidden and few can afford the price of freedom.
Synopsis
Natalie March is a respected surgeon enjoying a busy, productive life in Washington DC. As her demanding career has left little time for friends or romance, her deepest relationship is with her mother, Vera March, a Russian immigrant and MS patient confined to a rehabilitation center. Vera is still haunted by the fact that her Ukrainian parents, innocent of any wrongdoing, were sent to the gulag, Stalin's notorious network of labor camps, when she was just a baby. All her life she has presumed that they perished there along with millions of other Russian citizens. Natalie would do anything to heal her mother's psychic pain: it's the one wound that she, a doctor, cannot mend. When a young Russian dancer named Saldana Tarasova comes to Natalie's office claiming to be her cousin, and providing details about her grandmother that no stranger could know, Natalie must face a surprising truth: her grandmother, Katarina Melnikova, is still very much alive. She escaped from the labor camp, married a native Siberian, and had another child, Saldana's mother. Natalie is thrilled to think that her Russian family is reaching out and that Vera may be able to reunite with her mother after so many years. In fact, Saldana has a darker motive for making contact. Suggesting that her family is in grave danger from Putin's government, she pleads for Natalie's help to defect. Unwilling to break the law, Natalie puts her off. Then the unthinkable happens, and Natalie is drawn step by step into a web of family secrets that will ultimately pit her against Russian security forces and even her own government. How far will Natalie go to find Katerina M. and satisfy her mother's deepest wish? How much will she risk to protect her Russian family--and her own country--from a dangerous international threat? Masterfully plotted and beautifully written, FINDING KATARINA M. takes the reader on an extraordinary journey across Siberia--to reindeer herding camps, Russian prisons, Sakha villages, and parties with endless vodka toasts--while it explores what it means to be loyal to one's family, one's country, and ultimately to oneself.