"A feast for serious fiction readers." —Wendy Smith, The Washington Post
"A dead-serious, dead-funny, no-he-didn't marvel." —Joshua Cohen, author of The Netanyahus
A thrilling, witty, and slyly original Cold War mystery about a ragtag group of Jewish refuseniks in Moscow.
On his wedding day in 1976, Viktor Moroz stumbles upon a murder scene: two gay men, one of them a U.S. official, have been axed to death in Moscow. Viktor, a Jewish refusenik, is stuck in the Soviet Union because the government has denied his application to leave for Israel; he sits “in refusal” alongside his wife and their group of intellectuals, Jewish and not. But the KGB spots Viktor leaving the murder scene. Plucked off the street, he’s given a choice: find the murderer or become the suspect of convenience. His deadline is nine days later, when Henry Kissinger will be arriving in Moscow. Unsolved ax murders, it seems, aren’t good for politics.
A whip-smart, often hilarious Cold War thriller, Paul Goldberg’s The Dissident explores what it means to survive in the face of impossible choices and monumental consequences. To help solve the case, Viktor ropes in his community, which includes his banned-text-distributing wife, a hard-drinking sculptor, a Russian priest of Jewish heritage, and a visiting American intent on reliving World War II heroics. As Viktor struggles to determine whom to trust, he’s forced to question not only the KGB’s murky motives but also those of his fellow refuseniks—and the man he admires above all: Kissinger himself.
Immersive, unpredictable, and always ax-sharp, The Dissident is Cold War intrigue at its most inventive. It is an uncompromising look at sacrifice, community, and the scars of history and identity, from an expert storyteller.
Genre: Thriller
"A dead-serious, dead-funny, no-he-didn't marvel." —Joshua Cohen, author of The Netanyahus
A thrilling, witty, and slyly original Cold War mystery about a ragtag group of Jewish refuseniks in Moscow.
On his wedding day in 1976, Viktor Moroz stumbles upon a murder scene: two gay men, one of them a U.S. official, have been axed to death in Moscow. Viktor, a Jewish refusenik, is stuck in the Soviet Union because the government has denied his application to leave for Israel; he sits “in refusal” alongside his wife and their group of intellectuals, Jewish and not. But the KGB spots Viktor leaving the murder scene. Plucked off the street, he’s given a choice: find the murderer or become the suspect of convenience. His deadline is nine days later, when Henry Kissinger will be arriving in Moscow. Unsolved ax murders, it seems, aren’t good for politics.
A whip-smart, often hilarious Cold War thriller, Paul Goldberg’s The Dissident explores what it means to survive in the face of impossible choices and monumental consequences. To help solve the case, Viktor ropes in his community, which includes his banned-text-distributing wife, a hard-drinking sculptor, a Russian priest of Jewish heritage, and a visiting American intent on reliving World War II heroics. As Viktor struggles to determine whom to trust, he’s forced to question not only the KGB’s murky motives but also those of his fellow refuseniks—and the man he admires above all: Kissinger himself.
Immersive, unpredictable, and always ax-sharp, The Dissident is Cold War intrigue at its most inventive. It is an uncompromising look at sacrifice, community, and the scars of history and identity, from an expert storyteller.
Genre: Thriller
Praise for this book
"The Dissident is a murder mystery, a love story, a diplomatic thriller, and a glimpse into a pivotal moment in Soviet history. But most of all it is a joy. An incandescent conjuring of Moscow in the 1970s full of dark humor, vodka, smoked fish, and choices no one should be forced to make, The Dissident is a hilarious and erudite novel brimming over with life." - Michael David Lukas
"The Dissident is Gorky Park written by Milan Kundera if he had ever developed a sense of humor and if everyone he knew was Jewish and Russian. Goldberg crafts an unexpected and fully original Cold War mystery with a force of knowledge about his subject that runs so deep he is able to forget the details and use it for dramatic purposes the way a musician forgets the instrument and focuses on the music. What's so impressive is how he reins in all that understanding with a mature hand, selects a clear destination, and makes real dramatic and fun choices along the way while improvising like a jazz master. In one way it's a highfalutin and wild ride. But the simplicity and harmony of a good novel is never lost. The Dissident is a brilliant dose of the humanist compassion we all need right now because it brings us closer to ourselves and helps us deal with that particularly tragic problem." - Derek B Miller
"The Dissident is Gorky Park written by Milan Kundera if he had ever developed a sense of humor and if everyone he knew was Jewish and Russian. Goldberg crafts an unexpected and fully original Cold War mystery with a force of knowledge about his subject that runs so deep he is able to forget the details and use it for dramatic purposes the way a musician forgets the instrument and focuses on the music. What's so impressive is how he reins in all that understanding with a mature hand, selects a clear destination, and makes real dramatic and fun choices along the way while improvising like a jazz master. In one way it's a highfalutin and wild ride. But the simplicity and harmony of a good novel is never lost. The Dissident is a brilliant dose of the humanist compassion we all need right now because it brings us closer to ourselves and helps us deal with that particularly tragic problem." - Derek B Miller
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