Murder in Petrograd
By Asya M. Pereltsvaig
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Petrograd, 1916. As Russia is swept up in the maelstrom of war, Oswald Rayner, a bookish Oxford graduate, is sent by British Intelligence to Petrograd.
His mission is to curb Rasputin’s influence and eliminate the man himself if needed. But Oswald soon realizes that his remit goes against his morals. Will he shirk his duty or be forever haunted by the blood on his hands and the burden of secrecy?
Murder in Petrograd re-imagines the web of forces surrounding Rasputin’s murder in a gripping saga of obsession, politics, loyalty, friendship, love, and fate. Taking the reader from Russia in 1905 to Oxford and California fifty-five years later, the novel delves into the emotional lives of a wide cast of real historical figures to explore the central questions of power, complicity, morality, and destiny.
Murder in Petrograd asks whether it is ever morally right to take the life of a human being, however repugnant and dangerous he might be. Blending archival research, immersive period detail, and vivid narrative reconstruction, it bridges scholarship and storytelling with cinematic scope.
